


wild things

by theadventuresof



Category: Naruto
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Other, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2020-09-24 23:46:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 45,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20367088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theadventuresof/pseuds/theadventuresof
Summary: The village is becoming a reality. The war is over. They are getting dinner soon. In any other story, this would be the end. But in the case of this one, it’s only the beginning.





	1. cumulus / nimbostratus / cirrus

**Author's Note:**

> good evening, i'm back on my hashimada bullshit. thanks to kip for inspiring this one. i took it and ran with it.....uhh....a LOT.

**cumulus**

Hashirama turns fifteen that fall. He spots Madara just once during recon then, perched like a statue halfway up a tall spruce tree with a whistle in his mouth and one gloved hand extended towards the windy sky. A pale hawk circles above him, gliding ghostlike in and out of the clouds. It screams as Hashirama approaches. Madara looks around suddenly, actually faces Hashirama’s direction, but Hashirama fights the white-hot fear that seizes him and remembers that Madara is halfway up the mountain, while he is all the way down in the tangle of fields and rivers at its base, and there is no way Madara could actually know he’s there. 

Hashirama stows his binoculars in the pouch at his hip as the hawk’s swift shadow passes over the ground at his feet. Madara blows his whistle. It’s a thin sound, but it carries shrilly down the mountain despite the wind. The pale hawk wheels around in the air at the sound and lights down neatly on Madara’s gloved hand. He has a bow and quiver strapped to his back. Hunting, Hashirama supposes, and remembers with an unpleasant crawling feeling in his chest how little food the Uchiha clan has right now. He has a sudden wild urge to call up to him, to shout and let his voice carry over the mountainside until it reaches Madara’s ears, but he knows he could never do it, and besides that the clan would label him a traitor.

What does it matter, he lets himself think, still fighting the urge to shout, since surely Madara already thinks of him as a traitor anyway.

* * *

**nimbostratus**

Winter comes with a vengeance that year. Hashirama feels like centuries have passed since those rare peaceful days they spent on the riverbank together. He remembers it as if it’s from someone else’s lifetime, from a different world, somewhere permanently sunlit and golden and warm. These days he wouldn’t be surprised if summer never came again. He watches the snow whip past the window as the skies grow darker and darker outside his quarters, and counts the sparks from the fireplace as they blink out into ash on the hearth.

The sake burns his throat. Even thinking Madara’s name hurts his chest so badly he feels like he could suffocate. He should really just put his scroll away for the night and return to it tomorrow when he’s sober. But he wants to make himself as miserable as possible tonight—a selfish pursuit, he thinks, desperately trying to insert himself into Madara’s shoes once again at the expense of his entire clan—and he knows that if he plunges doggedly on writing these ceasefire terms, he undoubtedly will.

It’s not enough, he thinks, will _ never _ be enough, and the thought just makes him feel worse—_Good, then, _ he tells himself, with a tremendous pang of shame. This is not his tragedy; this is not his loss; not his burden to bear. But, Ashura’s bones, he needs to feel even a fraction of what Madara is feeling right now, wherever he is, now that Uchiha Izuna is dead.

Two more defectors show up at the Senju encampment around midnight that night, shivering in their threadbare mantles and carrying a tiny child swaddled in furs between them. They huddle together like bedraggled ravens, dripping in the hallway, with the painful air of people too proud and too afraid to admit that they do not know what to do or where to go. Tōka intercepts Hashirama on his way out of his quarters to meet them. She puts one hand on his shoulder, stops him in his tracks.

“I’ll handle it,” she says. “You’d better go.”

Hashirama retreats back to his desk, feeling worse. He sits back down, heaving an almighty sigh. He is not a young man anymore. One of the candles on his desk has gone out. He picks up his quill again, dips it in the ink. His chest feels heavy. If Madara were here… 

Madara. His chest aches. He feels like dying. 

_ You lied to me _

—is what Madara would say if he were here— 

_ How can we ever see each other as equals when you have everything I don’t, _ he would say _ —and you just keep taking and taking, indiscriminately—why do you alone deserve wealth and power and fame and fortune; why must the name _ Senju Hashirama _ carry with it an air of notoriety, of respect and awe and honor— _

Honor, Hashirama scoffs to himself, and tips his head back and finishes off another bottle. Now that he’s started imagining it he can’t stop. The quill in his hand is paused at the top of the scroll, unmoving.

_ All a man has in this world is his reputation and you’ve taken that from me too, made me into everything you’re not—a clan leader who can protect neither his clan nor his brothers— _

Hashirama purses his lips and tosses his quill aside. As if following orders, he tears the scroll to shreds, sweeps the scraps off his desk and onto the floor. He thinks of the multitudes of Uchiha refugees curled up on spare mats in the supply tent; he thinks of Izuna coughing up great scarlet blossoms of blood and Madara screaming his name, sprinting to him through the smoke and the steam, pushing one gloved hand into the deep gash in his side— 

_ How can I tell if you truly meant what you said back then? _ Madara would say. 

He’s missed a scrap of parchment. He idly holds it in front of the nearest candle, watching the corners curl and smoke dot its way upwards in a tiny thin plume. A little line of red flame makes its way up the parchment, leaving a strip of black carbon behind. 

_ All the things we talked about—it clearly meant nothing to you, _ Madara’s voice says in his brain. His head is throbbing. He closes his eyes, breathes in as deeply as his aching chest will allow. 

There must be something he can do, some sacrifice he can make, to show Madara that he still feels the same as he did back then. 

* * *

**cirrus**

Madara is waiting for him when he arrives on top of the mountain early that morning, standing at the cliff’s edge and turning a small smooth stone over and over in his hands.

“You haven’t been here long, I hope,” Hashirama says.

“Barely more than a minute,” Madara says, turning away from the cliff. His voice is hoarser than Hashirama remembers. He pockets the stone carefully and strides over to meet Hashirama. Misty gray clouds move slowly by the mountaintop, spitting rain on the pair of them. A hint of colorless light is staining the bruised horizon before them; sunrise is coming, taking some of the chill from the air as it draws nearer.

“Sleep all right?” Hashirama says.

Madara shrugs. “Well enough,” he says. “You?”

“Well enough,” Hashirama echoes. He bites his lip. He’s been worried, in the wake of their budding truce, that their relationship is simply too damaged to salvage—worried Madara might feel it’s not worth salvaging at all. Beside him, Madara lets out a long breath. He’s holding something back, maybe not even consciously; Hashirama can tell. He just can’t figure out what it is. The uncertainty cuts into him, pressing harder and harder until he’s clenching his jaw from it.

The mist breaks, and a flock of waxwings with red-tipped tails come skittering across the sky, chirping as they pass over Hashirama’s head. The clifftop is brightening now, tentatively at first, and way above their heads the pale sky is stained with great feathery clouds. Hashirama squints up as more birds sail by, chattering among themselves.

“Do you—” Madara says haltingly. He looks out over the newly-green forest, scanning the treetops below them. The air is full of birdsong now, and Hashirama can see winding lines of mist rising out of the trees below them where all the hidden streams are flowing down the mountain.

“Do you want to get,” Madara continues, swallowing, “dinner?”

Hashirama looks at him in surprise. Madara must have misread his expression, because he quickly backtracks, holding his hands up in appeasement.

“Not tonight,” he says quickly, “but sometime soon—I just thought—” 

“Yes!” Hashirama says, finding that he is unexpectedly breathless. “Yes, let’s do it.”

Madara’s face twists into what could almost be considered a smile. He looks pale and tired in the light from the weak sunrise. But there’s a hint of his usual proud, clever look underneath, and just from seeing it makes hope bloom in Hashirama’s chest. Maybe, just maybe, they’ll be all right.

* * *

(The village is becoming a reality. The war is over. They are getting dinner soon. In any other story, this would be the end. But in the case of this one, it’s only the beginning.)


	2. truce

Kagami is dancing with a red-haired woman that Madara has never seen before. He giggles uncontrollably as she spins him in a slow circle, his tiny feet resting on top of her beaded sandals. Madara can hear him laughing from across the crowd of mingling clan members, and he watches, impressed, as Kagami performs some sort of complicated two-step, sending the woman into a twirl at the same time.

“I’ll be damned,” Madara says into Hashirama’s ear, “you actually did it.”

Hashirama stands next to him on the temple steps, tall and broad and solid, grinning out over the sea of excited faces in the crowd below them. The banners bearing the Uchiha and Senju crests flap suddenly in the breeze; the gnarled trees at the temple’s edge sway.

“It may have taken a few years,” Madara continues, “but you really pulled it off.”

Hashirama’s grin disappears. He turns away from the crowd and looks straight into Madara’s eyes, his face more serious than Madara has ever seen it before.

_ “We _ pulled it off,” he says in a low rumble that gives Madara shivers, _ “together.” _ And then with his back still to the crowd he gives Madara a tiny, secret smile that makes Madara’s insides melt. 

_ Ah, _ Madara thinks, reflecting on the whole ordeal so far. _ Shit. _

Who _ wouldn’t _ be at least a _ little _ in love with Hashirama after all of that? Madara reasons. He’s tall and strong and handsome; he’s a formidable presence both on the battlefield _ and _ at the head of the meeting table; he’s just altered the course of shinobi history—and the history of the world, for that matter.

But he thinks back to the simpler things, his long shiny hair and his liquid black eyes and his disarming smile, the way he picks at the knot in his haori when he’s nervous—the way Madara can _ tell _ when he’s nervous, even after all these years they’ve spent apart—Madara can read him like a book the way no one else can, and yet Hashirama still makes him feel like he’s no closer to deciphering him than he was the day they first met. The thought entices him more than he wants to admit. He thinks of Hashirama’s stupid boisterous laugh and his stupid hakama and his _ stupid _ haori hanging open and exposing _ far _ too much of his chest; thinks of the gentle way he handles his plants; the way he talks to children like they’re his equals, never talks down to them—it’s still just _ Hashirama, _ always been Hashirama—and decides that he might as well just accept that he’s going to be dealing with these feelings for the rest of his life.

“A toast!” Hashirama roars. “To the Uchiha and Senju clans! To our new alliance! To Uchiha Madara,” he continues in a much lower voice, looking over at Madara with a look of pure adoration. Madara feels his heart jump violently in his chest. He clenches his jaw as they embrace. Hashirama’s face is wet, and Madara reaches up to wipe his cheek dry with his sleeve. Hashirama gives a great happy sniff and then they both drink deeply from their cups.

The crowd falls silent as they all drink in unison. Uchiha and Senju, Madara and Hashirama—a warm feeling spreads through Madara’s chest until he feels as if he’s suffocating right there on the temple steps. _ Oh, yes, _ he thinks as he smiles vaguely, raising his cup to his lips once more for good measure. _ This is not good. _

* * *

Madara wanders through the celebration for a while after that, trying to commit as much of it to memory as he can. Hikaku and Naori are talking animatedly to Tōka; all three of them are perched on a smooth boulder, roasting fresh fish over a little fire. Kagami is engrossed in what looks like a candied peach on a stick, and one of his aunts notices his progress and quickly bends down to wipe his sticky face clean. Several Senju children have started some sort of game with a big leather ball, and Madara is pleased to notice a small throng of Uchiha children drawing closer, looking like they want to join in.

The red-haired woman from earlier is standing under the ginkgo tree by the edge of the pond, deep in conversation with several of Hashirama’s cousins. Almost in unison, they catch sight of him coming closer and quickly retreat, leaving her alone by the tree. She gently runs her hand up its trunk, apparently deep in thought.

Madara steels his nerves. He steps forward.

“Kagami doesn’t dance like that with just anybody,” he says quietly, placing one hand on the woman’s shoulder, “least of all with a complete stranger.”

She turns around. The paper tags hanging from the ornaments in her hair tremble slightly as she surveys him. Madara gets the impression he is being judged quite harshly.

“Nor do I,” she says curtly, turning to leave again. 

“Wait!” Madara cries. Quickly he takes her hand off her. “I’m Uchiha Madara. I didn’t mean to…”

She frowns, looking taken aback. _ “Oh,” _ she says, and then her face relaxes. She flaps her fan open. “Mito,” she says, amusement in her eyes. “I didn’t recognize you. My apologies.”

He scoffs as they begin to walk. “I should hope I’m at least _ somewhat _ recognizable,” he says. “I am…somewhat well-known, or so I had thought.”

“You are not as tall as I thought you would be,” she says, smiling broadly now. 

Madara scowls. “Hashirama dwarfs everyone he meets. I’m plenty tall, thank you.”

“The Senju clan head?” she says. “He dwarfs you in particular. How tall _is_ he, exactly?”

Madara laughs. He doesn't want to answer. “You should have seen him as a teenager,” he says instead. “Scrawny little thing—like a string bean with a bowl cut. Tragic, really. I have no idea how he managed to turn out like _that.”_

Her face lights up. “You two go back, do you?” she says.

Madara finds that he is quite unable to stop himself from smiling. “Longer than I could possibly get into right now,” he says. “His fashion sense hasn’t improved much, at any rate. Drink?”

They’ve arrived at the bar. The music is unbearably loud. Mito steps up and orders something pink that comes in a glass with a huge spindly stem, effortlessly deflecting his efforts to pay for it for her. She sips it, looking smug.

“How _did_ you get Kagami to dance?” Madara says, as his own sake arrives. “He’s the timidest child I’ve ever met.”

She laughs lightly. “Timid around you, perhaps,” she says.

Madara pushes his hair out of his eyes, acutely aware that he hasn’t brushed it in over a month. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

She purses her lips. He gets the feeling she’s thinking somewhere along the same lines as him. “I think you know just what I mean.”

He casts her a sideways glance. “Do I?”

There’s a steely glint in her eyes now. _“Do_ you?”

Madara is nonplussed. “Do I what?”

“Dance,” she says, as if this is the most obvious thing in the world.

“Oh,” Madara says. He grins at her. “Only in…select company. And definitely not tonight. How long are you here for?”

“The next three days, at the very least,” she says. “The Senju clan head built us a house to stay in while we’re here. We came at his request.”

“Oh?” Madara says. “Which clan—?”

_“Madara!”_ Hashirama says loudly, appearing seemingly out of nowhere at Madara’s elbow with a pair of drinks in his hands. “Have you tried the orange sake?” He offers one cup to Madara, grinning wider than Madara had thought possible. 

“I have not,” Madara says. “That sounds terrible.” But he tries it anyway.

Mito places her hand on Madara’s shoulder. “I’ll see you soon, no doubt,” she murmurs in his ear. He turns around to bid her goodbye, but she’s vanished. He frowns.

Hashirama shouts something at him that he doesn’t quite catch through the noise at the bar.

“Let’s walk,” Madara shouts, standing on his toes and cupping one hand over Hashirama’s ear. “Come on.”

Hashirama has clearly had a lot to drink. Madara can practically taste the alcohol on his breath. He leans his head on Madara’s shoulder as they walk along the path through the field, brushing his fingertips against the tips of the tall grass. Afternoon is quickly turning to evening. The trees up above the cliff are glowing gold and green; somewhere far off beyond the forest, a single song sparrow spins its last song of the day. The moon is rising, a peach-pink slice in the sky, and patches of indigo clouds are gathering here and there, threatening rain. Hashirama picks a little white flower out of the field and tucks it behind his left ear, then picks a second one and offers it to Madara.

“Now we can match,” he says with a little laugh.

Madara turns the flower over and over in his hand, memorizing its shape. He counts twenty-eight tiny petals in the half-light from the sunset. The sensation of Hashirama’s warm weight on his shoulder is overwhelming; Madara can feel his chakra undulating in great hot waves. It washes over him the way the sea washes over limestone cliffs, wearing them away into sand and silt—and besides that, Madara is not entirely sober himself right now—Indra's bones, Hashirama is so _ close— _

“Let’s get married,” Hashirama murmurs in his ear. 

Madara’s face suddenly feels very cold, then very hot. 

“What?” he says hoarsely, thinking that perhaps all the flavored sake has gotten to his head at last, not to mention at the worst possible moment. Then the panic comes in a hot flood, rising in his chest like boiling tar. His hands are trembling, his fingertips going numb. Hashirama can’t know—he can’t have figured it out in the first place—

“I’m serious,” Hashirama rumbles, very seriously, wrapping his arms around Madara’s chest. “Think about it. You and me—it’s always been you and me. There’s no one else on earth that I’d rather…” He trails off, and a rare crease appears between his eyebrows. “It just…I just think…it makes _ sense.” _

Madara forces himself to gather his wits. 

“I—I think you’ve had enough sake,” he says, lifting Hashirama’s cup away from him. Hashirama pouts and crouches in the grass, his long hair spilling in the dirt.

“I’m going to go…think about it,” Madara says, truthfully. He sets the cup down in the dirt. It takes every ounce of energy he has not to sprint across the field away from his best friend.

* * *

He climbs the familiar trail up the cliff in what feels like no time at all. He’s still a little tipsy from all the sake he’s been drinking, and as he pauses by his favorite sycamore tree at the top of the mountain, he’s surprised to find that he’s almost completely winded. He’s crying, he realizes belatedly, but he can’t think of any particular reason as to why. He sits down on the ground, cursing, and puts his face in his hands. Today is a _ happy _ day, he tells himself harshly. He shouldn’t—he shouldn’t— 

The guilt wracks through him like a bolt of lightning and he curls up into a ball at the base of the sycamore tree, shivering, unable to move, unable to think clearly. Hashirama, the celebration down in the forest, the drunken marriage proposal—none of it feels real up here. 

Madara has had plenty of experience with grief, not that that makes it any easier to endure. It’s been four months since Izuna died, now, but he can’t help thinking of it. He’s walking on eggshells constantly now, always seconds away from brushing into something—_anything—_that will send him back into his too-familiar spiral. 

Izuna warned him not to do this.

He is floating supine down a river that is the future of Hashirama’s village—_their _ village—and Izuna’s memory is a great gnarled branch wedged between a pair of smooth stones at its center, disturbing the flow and sending water flying in little distressed rivulets and ripples. He can submerge the branch all he wants, but no matter how hard he shoves it down, it always finds its way back to the surface again, tugging at him the way a fish tugs at a fly-line, snagging on his skin, casting him into doubt.

He is, without question, going against his last brother’s dying wish. But at the same time…it feels natural; it feels right. Or he _ wants _ it to.

He remembers the time Izuna came home at four in the morning with a puffy eyebrow piercing, reeking of incense and catnip smoke; he remembers Izuna giving a drunken lap dance to a very bemused Hikaku during a particularly rowdy bonfire party. _Of all the things to remember about Izuna,_ he thinks. And then he remembers the celebration that he's just abandoned, remembers Uchiha and Senju folk all gathered together, drinking and laughing and dancing as one large group. He tries to picture Izuna among them.

“Tell me,” Madara whispers to the mountaintop. “Please, please, just tell me if I’m doing the right thing.” 

(Izuna does not respond.)

* * *

He’s lost track of how long he’s been away from the celebration, but the sun has gone down and a light rain is beginning to fall, speckling the sand at his feet. He takes a long breath in, and lets it out slowly. Frogs are singing their high-pitched song in the trees behind him.

It’s almost poetic, he thinks, as he tips his head back and lets the rain fall on his face. Let the turmoil of these past three decades wash away in the rain; clean the slate; let the old make way for the new. This village of theirs—it’s a fresh start for everyone who is willing enough to try. 

Fear slams into him once more as the sharp smell of petrichor fills his nostrils. He’s not any more sure of himself than he was when he left Hashirama by the field, and for a fleeting second he wonders if he’ll ever be sure of himself again. His hair is getting damp and frizzy down his back. He groans as he stands up. It’ll take ages to dry it out. Reluctantly, he drags himself away from the clifftop and begins his silent solitary trek back down the path towards the temple. The moon is threatening to come out again. Each tiny raindrop feels like a prick of fire on his skin, he notices—and all at once, it’s as if the whole cliffside is burning. 

His head is full of clouds. With each step, as he draws closer and closer to the celebration at the base of the cliff, the thick bouquet of chakra from the crowd below thrums in his head, assaulting his senses, throbbing like hundreds of deafening heartbeats all around him. He can feel them all, every single person now under his protection—the children burning brightly like clusters of newborn blue-hot stars—the smoky burgundy warmth of the elders—the array of golds and violets and greens and scarlets that make up the rest. As if in a trance, he crosses the field at the bottom of the mountain. It’s too much to endure; too much for his brain to process. They are all his responsibility now—not just the Uchiha clan but this entire village that he and Hashirama have created—if he loses one more person precious to him, he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to bear it… 

He walks up to the temple in a way that seems not quite solid; each step is sure and firm, but his sandaled feet hardly seem to touch the ground, and he moves like a ghost, a spirit, a plume of smoke with his dark mantle and his black wild hair and pale hands. He carries a single flickering spark on his fingertips, and his face glows firefly-white in its bobbing eerie light—

And there is Hashirama’s chakra, burning brightly at the center of everything, a lantern, a beacon—solace, _ home, _ and he approaches him hungrily, almost desperately, needing to find Hashirama, to come to him, to bury himself in Hashirama’s warmth.

A cold ripple runs through the crowd as he approaches; heads turn and whispers die in throats. Uchiha and Senju alike part for him as he passes by, but he hardly pays it any mind. There is Hashirama, perched with casual elegance at the head of the table, entertaining a crowd of the Daimyō’s men. His face is alight with laughter; his warm brown hands are spread wide, beckoning him in.

Madara comes gliding to him, barely noticing his feet stepping over the ground, moving towards him like a moth drawn to a lantern on one of those humid summer nights when the moon hangs heavy in the sky and the forest’s edge seems to sigh from the heat. He steps up to Hashirama’s chair, puts his hand on Hashirama’s warm shoulder, and leans over to whisper in his ear.

“Walk with me,” he says quietly. Hashirama stands up from the table at once, and his face becomes sober and serious. 

They walk.

* * *

They are silhouetted behind the main Senju tent, the lights from the celebration a faint glow from across the forest. Multitudes of crickets are bivouacked in the tall grass around them, chirping idly away.

“What’s going on?” says Hashirama, frowning. 

Madara’s mouth falls open. He’s forgotten what he had wanted to say. Out here in the dark, far from the prying eyes of the partygoers at the temple, he is seized with a sudden wild urge to reach up and grab Hashirama’s face and kiss him hard. He squeezes his eyes shut. A cicada buzzes lazily somewhere in the trees behind them.

He lifts the tent flap, ducks inside. Hashirama follows him, still frowning deeply. Madara lights a pair of candles, moving a few golden scrolls out of the way. Hashirama’s bed things are scattered on the tent floor, a little mat and a pillow and a mess of blankets all emblazoned with the symbol of the Senju clan. 

Madara sits down on the blankets, puts his head between his knees. Hashirama kneels at his side.

“Madara?”

He’s almost embarrassed to ask. 

“Can you put me to sleep?” he says. “I’m…” He can’t quite articulate how he’s feeling in his confusion. “I can’t…”

“Of course,” Hashirama says softly. “Lie down.” 

Madara does, sighing. Hashirama kneels at the head of the mat. Madara’s head is practically in his lap. He touches his fingertips gently to Madara’s temples. The tent starts to blur immediately. He thinks he hears an owl calling somewhere outside.

“Thanks,” Madara mutters, as sleep comes over him. 

* * *

He dreams that he is fourteen again, all unruly hair and rough sweaty palms and scabby knees. He sprints through the forest, stumbling over roots and rocks along the path. Madara _ never _ stumbles. 

But the thoughts weighing on his mind right now have him unbalanced. Unbalanced, he thinks, in the best possible way. How wonderful, how miraculous it is, to be in the company of someone who thinks just like he does, someone who can practically reach into his mind and read his most intimate thoughts, things he’s never even told Izuna—someone who almost knows his mind better than _ he _does, who can voice what he’s thinking almost before he’s even though of it himself.

Hashirama makes him illogical, impulsive, reckless. Hashirama is _ dangerous. _ They spent so long up on the cliff together this morning that he’s lost track of time, again, and now he’s going to be late for Tajima’s briefing this afternoon. Not for the first time that summer, the fleeting thought crosses his mind— _ I could just run away and never come back— _but he shoves it away as he leaps over an enormous muddy tussock. Izuna. He could never leave Izuna.

But Hashirama…

_ It doesn’t have to be one or the other, _ Madara thinks. _ I don’t have to choose between Hashirama and my last brother. _

Then he tells himself—yet again—not to be an idiot, because that’s not how it works. Not in this world. Not in this lifetime.

The Uchiha compound is within view. He’s practically flying over the uneven ground now, hair streaming behind him, chest burning; he thinks he might have lost a sandal but that doesn’t matter; he’s here; _ Tajima _ is here. Madara quickly thinks back to the clifftop this morning, of Hashirama’s bright smile, of their plans to build a village together. He skids to a halt in front of Tajima, panting. He’s too late. By the look of things, Tajima has already briefed the rest of the battalion, and they’re starting to disperse already.

“Sorry I’m late,” he gasps, cursing his voice for shaking. Tajima shakes his head.

“This is better,” he says. “I’d like a word with you, alone.”

Madara is cold with dread. “Yes, sir.”

Tajima peels off his blood-soaked gloves and inspects his hands with feigned casualness. He draws his tantō, picks a bit of dirt from beneath one oval fingernail. “I know about that boy you’ve been meeting with.”

Madara’s heart drops from his throat deep into the pit of his stomach. Oh. Oh. _ Oh. _

“Look into my eyes, Madara,” Tajima says, and then everything goes red. 

* * *

He comes to bolt upright on the mat, gasping for breath, blanket tangled hopelessly around his legs. Sunlight streams into the tent. The flap is open, and a warm mist is rising off the ground from last night’s rain. A raven calls off in the distance, and Madara lies back down and watches a slug crawl through the wet grass near his face, trying to steady his breathing. Cheery bunches of yellow finches whistle idly outside, no doubt helping themselves to the big bush full of red berries by the tent flap.

Red—

Tajima—Izuna—a katana to the side—pale cold hands and empty black eye sockets—

Madara blinks away the images of his dead brothers with a deep shudder. He rolls over, faces away from the tent flap. There are his sandals, arranged neatly beside his pillow—Hashirama must have taken them off him at some point during the night. 

And there is Hashirama himself, asleep right beside him, his chest rising and falling with hypnotic slowness. The white flower is still tucked behind his ear, fresh as ever. Madara watches him for a while; lets himself imagine, just for a moment, that he’s waking up next to Hashirama in their shared bedroom; that in a minute he’ll tiptoe into the kitchen and cook breakfast for them both while Hashirama is still asleep, and then wake him up with a smattering of tiny kisses, all over his nose and lips and forehead—and then Hashirama will laugh his deep laugh and they’ll stay in bed all morning, breakfast forgotten—get wonderfully lost in each other—

Hashirama stirs slightly under his blankets and sighs gently in his sleep, unknowing, blissful, perfect. The minutes pass. More people are moving about now. Someone says his name in the next tent over, but Madara is too absorbed in his observations of Hashirama to pay it any mind, and he doesn’t think anything of it.


	3. mito

****Hashirama wakes up slowly, and more than a little painfully. He heaves himself up into a sitting position with a small groan, running his hands down his face in an attempt to soothe his hangover. He reaches for his canteen, careful to avoid the pair of newts on the ground beside the mat. His haori is twisted in the wet grass by his head. Madara is lying next to him on the mat, his eyes open and glassy.

“Are you awake?” Hashirama whispers. Madara nods silently.

“Tobirama must have gone home,” Hashirama says. “His shoes aren’t here.”

“Or they got snatched up by a passing bandit with a foot fetish,” Madara offers halfheartedly, unblinking. Hashirama snorts.

“Why didn’t _ you _go home?” Madara says, sitting up on the mat.

Hashirama blinks. “Huh?”

Madara scowls. “There’s a perfectly good bed waiting for you just across the village, isn’t there?”

“Didn’t feel like it,” Hashirama mutters, now brushing his hair with his fingers. “Too far in the dark. Too drunk. I’ve just been sleeping here for the past few nights, anyway. It’s kind of nice, being out in a tent under the stars.” It was nice having Madara there, too, Hashirama thinks. He remembers a time, long ago, when Madara had showed up to the riverbank dead tired, and asked Hashirama to keep an eye out while he took a nap on the smooth stones by the edge of the water. Sharing a tent with him had felt familiar; warm.

They get dressed and washed in relative silence. A strand of gossamer spiderweb slides through the air as they exit the tent and survey the field full of tents surrounding them. It’s one of those brilliant sapphire-blue mornings; there isn’t a cloud to be seen. They catch sight of Tōka, who is also coming out of her tent, tiny Uchiha Machiko in tow.

“Have a good night, you two?” Tōka says, winking roguishly at the pair of them. Machiko waves timidly, clinging to Tōka’s pants.

“All right,” Hashirama says, waving to Machiko with a wide smile. “You?”

Tōka puts her hand over her heart. “Heavens,” she says, hefting Machiko up to a more secure perch on her hip. “I met an _ angel _ of a lady last night. Oh, to have the Sharingan.”

Hashirama perks up slightly. “Oh?”

“Well, she was off like a pair of fishnets before I could catch her name,” Toka says, deflating slightly. “Apparently she’s an Uzumaki princess—Ashina’s eldest daughter. That was all I managed to find out.”

“Ah!” Hashirama says. “We’re heading over there right now. We’ll see her, no doubt.”

Toka nods sagely. “Another busy day for you two, then?”

“Oh, yes,” Hashirama says. “Ashina this morning, and then the Yamanaka head has requested to meet with us at noon, and then with any luck we’ll get done just in time to meet with the Daimyō at three. We should be back in the village before dinnertime.”

“And if we’re not, I’ll break the Daimyō’s kneecaps,” Madara says. Machiko laughs. 

Madara snorts. “It’s no laughing matter,” he says. “That man can_ talk_. And dessert is half off at the hot pot place tonight.”

“Ah, you two are eating out, are you?” Tōka says, nodding appreciatively. “I suppose once the village is built you can finally take some time off for a proper honeymoon. Shouldn’t take longer than, what, five or six years for everything to get settled?”

Hashirama laughs, somewhat bemused by her wording. Perhaps he’s misheard her.

“Well, safe travels, you two,” Tōka says. “Come on, my dear, let’s go write some genjutsu formulas.” Machiko waves over her shoulder at the pair of them as they retreat down the path towards the forest. 

“Machiko seems to be doing better,” Madara says.

Hashirama nods. “Tōka’s been wonderful,” he says. “She jumped at the opportunity to take her in, once it became clear her parents were in no condition to take care of her…” 

“Oh—those—weren’t her parents,” Madara says stiffly.

Hashirama frowns. He hadn’t known. He thinks back to the night Machiko had arrived at the Senju compound in the wake of Izuna’s death; thinks of how hazy and useless he had been with a prickle of shame. “Who were they?”

“Her older siblings,” Madara said. “They were…they were in a bad way when they deserted the clan. Well—we all were. But they had been taking care of Machiko since they were very young—they were orphaned early on, right around the time I became clan leader.”

“I hadn’t realized,” Hashirama says quietly. “Children taking care of children—it’s unacceptable.”

“We did it.”

Hashirama purses his lips. “That doesn’t make it right.”

Madara frowns suddenly, as if something else has just occurred to him. “What did Tōka mean by honeymoon?” he says, looking at Hashirama in confusion. 

Hashirama shrugs. “No idea,” he says. A hummingbird zips by them, then doubles back and takes a sip from the flower tucked behind Hashirama’s ear before speeding off into the blue.

* * *

Uzumaki Ashina does not look particularly pleased to see the pair of them walking into his parlor fifteen minutes later. He glares at the door as Madara slides it shut behind him, crossing his arms very tightly over his chest. His hair is almost blindingly silver in the pale sunlight from the window behind them.

As they are getting settled, Ashina’s daughter emerges from the next room and stands beside the table, placing one hand on her father’s shoulder. Her hair is a lovely deep red in its tight buns, and she has something of a mysterious twinkle in her eye. She nods at the pair of them, pursing her lips as if she knows something they don’t.

_ “That’s _ Ashina’s daughter?” Madara murmurs to him as they slide their sandals off and place them by the door. Hashirama nods brightly.

“I was planning on offering the leader of the Senju clan my daughter’s hand in marriage this morning as a sign of good faith towards the new alliance,” says Ashina as they join him at the table, “but I see that after last night’s…_ceremony_…that will no longer be necessary.”

Somewhere in the distance, a rooster crows. Hashirama and Madara silently share a very confused look.

It hits Madara first. Hashirama swears his hair stands up on end like a cat’s. His eyebrows migrate up his forehead at an alarming speed, and his mouth pops open into a perfect round _ O. _ Then it dawns on Hashirama too. The sharing of vows, the handshake, the tearful embrace, Madara spending the night in the main Senju tent—it must have looked an awful lot like—

Hashirama forces his brain to churn out real words instead of weak sputtering noises. “We are not—we aren’t married,” is all he can manage. Ashina’s daughter looks taken aback.

“Well, in that case, I gladly re-extend my previous offer,” Ashina says, sounding relieved. He regards Hashirama solemnly. “My daughter Mito will gladly accept her necessary duties as heir to the Uzumaki clan—” 

“With all due respect, Father,” Mito cuts in, “offering up my hand in my stead won’t be _ necessary _ under any circumstances, as I am perfectly capable of finding a suitable partner for myself.” 

She says something else then, under her breath, that sounds very much like “Whoever she may be.”

Hashirama feels a strange wave of—relief?—wash over him. Mito is beautiful, obviously. But for some reason he had not felt too keen on marrying her. Perhaps it had been the sheer suddenness of the proposition. 

In the end, to Ashina’s severe disappointment, no marriage contract is signed, but he _ does _ reluctantly agree to send a six-man convoy of Uzumaki shinobi to scout out the village for the next three months. Mito volunteers to join it at once.

“I accept your terms of alliance, Senju-sama, Uchiha-sama,” Ashina says, signing the contract with a flourish. “And should either of you ever desire to marry, look no further than the Uzumaki clan—” 

Mito shoots them both a look that clearly says, _ Sorry about him. _

* * *

“I am finding Ashina’s daughter much more agreeable than Ashina himself,” Madara admits as they make their way back through the garden towards the road.

As if summoned by his words, Mito suddenly appears at the door to the porch opposite the walkway. She throws the door open and runs out into the garden, holding up her skirts to expose wrapped shins. 

“Wait!” she cries, bounding after them as they pass by Hashirama’s new hydrangeas. “I wanted to talk to you.”

Madara looks uncomfortable and goes to leave. Mito grabs him by the sleeve. _ “Both _ of you,” she says sternly. “I’m sorry about my father. He’s still stuck in the ways of the old era, I suppose. You understand, no doubt.”

Hashirama thinks of his and Madara’s fathers, dead now to widespread relief. His laugh comes out harsher than he had intended. “I understand,” he says. 

“So, you two really _ aren’t _ married?” Mito says, sounding very surprised indeed.

Madara shakes his head. “No,” Hashirama says, deciding to feign innocence. “Why, did someone think that?”

“Well—things are going around about the two of you,” she says in a much lower voice than before. “A lot of things.”

A pair of chattering sparrows in the cherry tree above them suddenly fall silent. Ominous, Hashirama thinks. 

“What exactly are people…saying about us?” Madara says carefully.

She glances between them. “You want the whole thing?”

Hashirama nods eagerly.

Mito folds her hands in her lap. She takes a deep breath. “They’re saying,” she murmurs, “that at the ceremony last night, you two exchanged vows and then ran off into the woods together. That you’ve…well…_eloped_, shall we say. And I’ll admit, I thought you had too—until this morning, anyway.”

Madara’s chakra gives a hot, frantic pulse at her words. Cherry blossoms fall like snow around them. Hashirama blinks sakura petals out of his eyes, frowning. It’s not that he _ minds _ being mistaken for Madara’s husband. Now _ that’s _ a dangerous path to tread down, Hashirama thinks, and quickly steers his brain elsewhere. People aren’t wrong about his—inclination, either. Actually, he’s always been perfectly open about his sexuality, and never tried to hide his interest in men _ or _his interest in women from anyone, save for perhaps his father, and has never particularly preferred one over the other. 

Somehow, though, with Madara standing right beside him, he feels…timid about it. He’s not embarrassed, exactly, but rather…something else. Oddly vulnerable, perhaps. 

“I’d be lying if I said I had ever taken an interest in a woman in that way,” Madara says baldly. Hashirama looks up from the blossom-covered ground, his eyes wide.

Mito nods. “I had a feeling.”

Hashirama just listens, and stares, and _ stares. _

* * *

The walk to their next meeting takes longer than they had expected. Twenty minutes in, Hashirama clears his throat and, perhaps unwisely, begins to speak. 

“So, you’re interested in men?” he says in what he hopes is a casual voice, trying to convey that to _ him, _ at least, this is a perfectly acceptable state of being.

Madara nods curtly; doesn’t stop walking. “Not that it matters,” he says. “I’m not planning on making anything of it.”

Hashirama chews on his lip for a while. “That’s fine. That’s good. I’m…” 

He trails off, suddenly intensely interested in the fastenings of his haori. Madara gives him one of those damning looks, one that makes the sunny day feel ten degrees colder but lights a fire in his chest at the same time. “You look like you have something to say,” he says.

“No—I—I mean—I’m not…opposed to…the idea of…men,” Hashirama stammers out. “I mean, we’re the same. I mean—”

“Oh, just stop it, Hashirama,” Madara sighs, “before you embarrass yourself even more. You’re lucky it’s just us out here.”

Hashirama laughs weakly. “At any rate, it would seem we’re on the same page about things once again,” he says.

Madara purses his lips and glowers at the stand of bamboo along the side of the road. For a few seconds it looks like his face has turned to stone. At last, his lips move. “Are we?” he says, and doesn’t look at Hashirama again until they pass through the village gates.

* * *

The next meeting gets off to a much better start. 

“Of course we’d be willing to join the alliance,” the Yamanaka clan head says, submerging a dumpling in soy sauce and popping it daintily into her mouth. She chews and swallows before continuing, “I’ve heard such good things in these past few months…In fact, just last week, two of my top advisors mentioned you, said they had already looked into joining…I’ll just need a few months to round up the clan, get everyone settled, you know.”

Hashirama beams at her. “Excellent!” he says, clapping his hands together. Beside him, Madara gives a satisfied _ hmph. _

“And—if I may be so bold—I heard about your marriage ceremony last night. You two make an _ excellent _couple,” she continues, clasping her hands together and offering them a kind smile. “Congratulations to you both.”

Hashirama laughs, more out of instinct than anything else. He looks around rather desperately for a few seconds, as if hoping some unseen deity might just swoop down from the heavens and pluck him right out of the room through the roof, sparing him from having to invent an appropriate response. Then he takes a sip of genmaicha in an attempt to calm himself down, and, in his haste, chokes on a piece of brown rice. He ducks behind the table, coughing and spluttering mightily.

“Um,” is all he can say once he surfaces. “Um.” His mind is reeling. _ Again. It happened again. Mito wasn’t joking. _He ventures a glance at the chair next to him. 

Madara looks like he’s just swallowed a whole lemon. Even Hashirama, with his limited sensory skills, can feel his chakra burning white-hot. Several papers on the table begin to curl up from the heat. He gently lays his hand on top of Madara’s, trying to soothe his chakra, and then quickly takes it off when he realizes this is not helping their case at all. 

“We’re not together,” Madara says flatly, his chakra somewhat calmer now.

“Oh,” she says, very quietly. “My apologies.”

Several seconds of silence follow, during which Hashirama tries very, very hard not to cough again.

“Well—I’ll meet with the rest of the clan tomorrow,” the Yamanaka matriarch says, finally. “We’ll be in touch.”

* * *

“Well,” Hashirama says, “that one could have definitely gone worse.”

They’re sitting outside the Daimyō’s quarters, sharing a bench flanked by enormous porcelain vases. The Daimyō, not surprisingly, is late to the meeting. Madara has been avoiding his eyes since lunch. He doesn’t respond. 

"She was happy for us, at any rate,” Hashirama continues. “That’s promising.”

Madara looks up at last. He opens his mouth. “What if the _ Daimyō _thinks we’re…?”

He doesn’t have to say the rest. They stare at each other for a long time.

Hashirama takes a deep breath. “We could always just…well…”

He can’t bring himself to say it. Madara looks at him expectantly, chewing on the inside of his cheek. Hashirama can tell that he’s thinking the exact same thing that Hashirama is, but he doesn’t want to say it either.

“What, go along with it?” Madara says at last.

“Well—think about it,” Hashirama says, feeling almost lightheaded from the volume of thoughts now entering his brain. Now that he’s entertaining the notion of pretending to marry Madara, he’s strangely enticed by the idea. “Marriage-based alliances often gain more traction with the feudal government than purely political ones. You saw how hard Ashina was trying to marry off his daughter this morning. He knew that the Daimyō would have eaten it right up.”

“Yes, but Hashirama,” Madara says, “Mito is a woman. What would the Daimyō think if we just marched in and announced—”

“You’re telling me you care what the Daimyō thinks of you?” Hashirama says. “I thought the great Uchiha Madara bowed to no one, least of all some overly-pompous Daimyō.”

“That’s not—I didn’t mean—” Madara stammers, turning pink. Then he seems to gather his wits. “You _ know _ I don’t give a damn about that man’s opinion. I just…”

Hashirama frowns. “What is it?”

Madara sighs. “You’ve heard the things people say about me. Fake or not, marriage is a lasting contract,” he says. “I don’t want you to feel like you’re obligated to go along with it. You’d be associated with all of _ that _ for the rest of your life. Who knows what kind of publicity you could attract in the future if word about us got out to other nations? I don’t want to be a black mark on your record forever, Hashirama.”

“Aha, so you were _ worried _ about me?” Hashirama says, laughing again. “I’d expect nothing less from my _ dear _ husband—”

“Shut up,” Madara growls, trying and failing to put Hashirama in a headlock.

“Madara,” Hashirama says, in his most singsong, winning voice, “I would be _ honored _ to have your black mark on my record.”

Madara glances at him out of the corner of his eye. “Don’t say it like that.”

* * *

“Congratulations, Uchiha-sama and Senju-sama,” the Daimyō says, and everyone in the room—the Daimyō’s scattered, rotund poker companions; his tall, thin wife; and the two enormous Land of Iron samurai standing by the door—burst into unlikely applause. The Daimyō steps further into the room, beckoning them closer. “Or is it Senju-sama and Senju-sama, now? Uchiha-sama and Uchiha-sama?”

Hashirama and Madara frown at each other. For the first time in a long time, Hashirama sees real, actual panic on Madara’s face.

“Excuse us for one moment,” Hashirama says, and tries not to slam the door behind them both as they exit.

* * *

“I don’t believe this,” Madara says, pacing back and forth in the hallway like a madman.

“At this point I’ve come to expect it,” says Hashirama, perched on the bench with his chin in his hands. “But first things first—we _ need _ to get our story straight. Do you really, truly want to do this?”

Madara stops pacing and wheels around. He has a funny look on his face.

“Are you actually proposing to me?” he says abruptly.

Hashirama wheezes with laughter. “Of course not,” he says once he’s regained his capacity for speech, wiping a tear from his eye. “Madara—we’re not really married.”

“I know that,” Madara snaps, glaring at the floor. 

“Madara,” Hashirama says, very seriously, “if you’re uncomfortable with this idea in any way, we absolutely don’t have to do it—”

“No! I mean…” Madara scratches behind one ear. “I’m not…_uncomfortable…_I just…” 

He’s holding something back again; Hashirama can tell. “What is it?” Hashirama says.

“Never mind,” Madara mumbles, pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand.

“Madara—”

“I said, _ never mind,” _ Madara hisses, glaring. His eyes gleam red for a moment.

Hashirama bites his lip. “Do you still want to do this?”

“I do if you do,” Madara says, his jaw set in determination.

“All right,” says Hashirama, suddenly businesslike. “Then we won’t confirm or deny it. We can always take it back if things get too intense. But for now, let’s just go back in and…and…” 

“Yes, yes, let’s just get this all over with,” Madara says, waving one hand dismissively. He stands up, takes Hashirama’s arm, takes a deep breath, and smiles. “Come on.”

“Wait,” Hashirama says.

“What?” snaps Madara.

“Don’t smile,” Hashirama says. “They might not buy it.”

Madara scowls. “You don’t think I’d smile if I had just gotten married?”

“Well,” Hashirama stammers, “I mean, just…just do what you think is right.”

Madara kicks the door open. They step back into the room.

“We—we have decided to keep our given names,” Madara announces, holding his chin up with as much pride as he can muster in the moment.

“Excellent, excellent!” the Daimyō says, clapping his hands together. One of the samurai in the back leans over and whispers something to the other. “Come, sit. Let’s discuss…” 

Hashirama groans inwardly. So the news of their marriage will be making it all the way to the Land of Iron within the next few days. Somewhere in the back of the mind, he can vaguely hear the Daimyō saying, “So about the new land distribution policy…”

It’s all a part of the package, Hashirama supposes, glancing at Madara in the chair next to his own. This is what being married to Madara entails. 

_ Well, all right, _ Hashirama thinks, reaching for Madara’s hand and holding it tight. Madara's hand squeezes his own, and he's invigorated by the sensation. _Bring it on. _

* * *

There is a small crowd in Hashirama’s kitchen by the time he makes it home. Evidently they’ve been waiting for him for a while.

“There’s the lucky man himself,” says Nozomi, offering Hashirama a tall goblet of wine. He smiles and shakes his head as he comes through the kitchen. Ashura’s bones, he needs to be _alone._

“I knew it, I just _ knew _ it!” Tōka is shouting, thrusting her tankard into the air. “Congratulations, Hashirama!” 

Machiko runs up to him and hugs him around the middle, laughing. “You married Madara-sama!” she squeals, looking like she might pass out from excitement.

Hashirama spots Tobirama in the corner by the sink, looking like the king of hell in his furs and dark turtleneck. His eyes flash dangerously. Hashirama groans. He’d rather not drag this out. He walks over, dreading the impending conversation.

“So,” Tobirama says.

Hashirama fights a mighty urge to blurt out “So what?” in response.

Tobirama takes a great inhale through his nose. His nostrils are white.

“Congratulations,” he says stiffly. 

Hashirama remains steady. “Thank you.”

“I must admit, I had expected to hear…well…a bit more from you about all of this before it actually happened,” Tobirama mutters. He flicks a piece of white fuzz off his shoulder. “Especially considering how much you _ usually _ talk about Madara.”

“Well, you know how it is,” Hashirama says weakly, knowing full well that Tobirama does _ not _ know how it is. “So much to do…so much going on…it must have just slipped my mind.” 

“It _ slipped your mind _ to tell your own _ brother _ that you were getting _ married?” _ Tobirama bursts out. “To _ Madara?” _

“It was nothing personal!” Hashirama says, now feeling oddly defensive of his imaginary marriage. “We didn’t tell anyone!”

Tobirama clenches his jaw. “Were you two even _ intending _ to get married, or did you just—” He gesticulates wildly for a few moments, apparently beyond words. “Just drunkenly consummate it with absolutely no regard for the future consequences of your actions?”

Hashirama looks affronted. “Excuse me!” he says, thinking back to his and Madara’s fervent conversation outside the Daimyō’s quarters earlier that afternoon. “A lot of planning went into it, in fact!”

“So help me,” Tobirama sighs, “if this is another one of your godforsaken pranks…”

“No!” Hashirama says, waving his arms like a windmill of denial. “Of course it’s not!”

They stare at each other for several extremely long seconds. Tobirama is the first to break eye contact.

“Does he make you happy?” Tobirama says, closing his eyes and crossing his arms with a long sigh. “Are you happy, Hashirama?”

Hashirama crosses his own arms. “What, is this an interrogation?”

Tobirama huffs. “Well, _ does _ he?”

“Of course he does,” Hashirama says instantly. He gives it a bit more thought. “I love him,” he concludes, almost shocked at the simplicity of this revelation. He _ does _ love Madara, without question,Hashirama decides, even if they aren’t really married like everyone thinks. Madara is the best friend he’s ever had; he’s the one person who understands him more than anyone else on earth; and no matter how hard the world may try to keep them apart, they always find each other without fail. He doesn’t know where he’d _ be _ if he didn’t love Madara.

Tobirama is studying his face intently. “All right,” he says. “I’m…I’m glad to hear it.”

“Thank you,” says Hashirama again, still crossing his arms.

Tobirama frowns and looks around.

“So where is he?” he says, as if Madara might be hiding under the kitchen floorboards at this precise moment.

“Oh,” Hashirama says, caught completely off guard. “He…had to go…” Ah, fuck. “Get his things packed,” he decides, “since he’s moving in with me soon.”

“Moving in with you?” Tobirama says. _ “Here?” _

“Oh, yes,” Hashirama says, not yet fully aware of the words he’s spouting. “We were thinking of adding a sunroom so that there’s more space—maybe expand the garden, while we’re at it…he should be moved in by tomorrow afternoon, if all goes according to—” 

“Anija,” Tobirama hisses, cutting him off completely. “Uchiha Madara is moving into our house? The house that we currently share? _ This _ house?”

“Y…yes,” Hashirama says weakly, his brain finally catching up to his mouth—which, he observes, feels extremely dry. “Tomorrow.”

Tobirama looks unimpressed. “You’d better go help him, then," he says, “instead of wasting your time here.”

Hashirama laughs rather nervously. “You’re absolutely right,” he says, and as he makes his escape he has the fleeting impression that Madara might not be too happy about this.

* * *

“Do you _ ever _ think before you fucking speak?” Madara hisses at him ten minutes later, once Hashirama has caught him up on the situation.

“Wait, Madara! Just think about it!” Hashirama says, catching the door before Madara can slam it in his face. “People would get suspicious if we continued living separately, wouldn’t they? And besides—we spend most of our time together anyway, so it won’t be that much of a transition! It’ll be better for the village, too. We’ll get more done if we’re living in the same house. This is a good thing!”

Madara throws the door open, sending Hashirama sprawling over the threshold. “I have to live with Tobirama!” he shouts. _ “Me!_”

“Believe me,” Hashirama says tiredly from the ground, “Tobirama didn’t seem too thrilled about it either.”

Madara slumps down against the wall, puts his head in his hands. He gives a slightly hysterical laugh. “Married for three hours and already fighting,” he says sadly. 

“Closer to twenty-four hours, if you count last night,” Hashirama says, fixing his broken nose with two glowing fingers. “That's not so bad. Better than my parents' marriage, at any rate."

Madara snorts. He stands up with an air of decisiveness. “Well, come on," he says, "help me pack my things.”

Hashirama looks up in shock, hardly daring to believe it. “Are you sure?” he says. “You—you’re really moving in?”

Madara rolls his eyes. “Of course I am, you idiot,” he says, extending one pale hand to pick Hashirama up off the floor, and Hashirama can’t help feeling that they seem very, very married indeed in that moment. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)


	4. indra's brew

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to rhodes for this one v_v

The pranks had started innocently enough. Tobirama hadn’t _ meant _ to give his brother such a terrible, _terrible_ haircut, Hashirama explains to Madara over a very early breakfast the next morning, but Hashirama was sixteen and sensitive and had _ just _ vowed to grow it out the night before. So, naturally, Hashirama had reupholstered every flat surface in Tobirama’s quarters with a thick layer of moss—which had backfired spectacularly, after Tobirama decided to keep it there for research purposes.

“See, it was never anything that would truly _ hurt _ the other,” Hashirama explains, lifting his miso soup to his lips. “Harmless stuff. You know—there’s nothing more satisfying than catching him off guard.” 

Things didn’t change after the founding of the village. Tobirama had called Hashirama ‘Hotaka’ for two whole weeks, to which Hashirama had put a dozen hawk moth caterpillars on Tobirama’s heirloom tomatoes, and then come home the next day only to find that Tobirama had replaced all of the kitchenware with beakers and test tubes, and that the man himself was sitting smugly at the head of the table, drinking coffee out of a 100mL graduated cylinder.

“There’s a lot more that I’m sure I’m forgetting,” Hashirama says, waving one hand nonchalantly, “but now you’re caught up, more or less.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Madara says, staring into his own coffee, and he truly doesn’t.

* * *

“Let me get this straight,” Tobirama says later that morning, hefting his day pack up over his shoulder. “You two just got married, and you’re sending _ me _ on a honeymoon.”

“It’s not a honeymoon!” Hashirama bursts out. “We just thought it might be nice for you to…to get out of the village for a little while, you know? You’ve just been so busy recently—you deserve a break!”

“Damn right I do,” Tobirama says, still looking somewhat like he’s doing this against his better judgment. 

“Do try to come back at _ some _ point, won’t you?” Hashirama says, his lower lip trembling as he hands him his fishing rod.

“Yeah, yeah,” Tobirama says. “See you, Anija.” He takes a deep breath, and nods at the pair of them. “Madara.”

Madara nods back, refusing to let his face show even a shred of emotion.

“Well then,” Hashirama says as Tobirama leaves, with the air of one clapping the dust from his hands after a long day at work. “At last, we can go back to being married in peace.”

“Thanks for doing that,” Madara mutters. “Living with just one of you ought to be challenging enough. At least now I can ease into it.”

“Tobirama _ is _ your brother-in-law now,” Hashirama says gently. “You’ll have to get used to having him around eventually.”

“Hashirama, we’re not actually married,” Madara reminds him, not liking the words “Tobirama” and “brother-in-law” in the same sentence. 

“Well, he’s been talking about wanting to take a fishing trip for months,” Hashirama says. “This is good for everyone.”

The manic gleam in Hashirama’s eyes says otherwise. Madara takes note of it with a vague feeling of foreboding.

“We'll get him eventually,” Hashirama says, smiling brightly at Tobirama's retreating back. “I’ve just got to think of something _really_ good first.”

* * *

Madara has been alone for a long time. Yes, he has the clan—and he had Izuna—but the clan is distant and cold now, and Izuna is dead and gone: Izuna, who he had practically raised; Izuna, who had confided in Madara his doubts, his worries, his fears, without Madara confiding anything of his own in return. 

He had loved Izuna dearly. But Hashirama is good for him in a way that Izuna never was. It disgusts him, thinking about it, finding himself slipping away from the past and hurtling into the future, leaving Izuna farther and farther behind, but he’s invigorated by it at the same time, and unable to stop the feeling…

Living with someone, Madara thinks, is a new kind of vulnerable. Your quiet moments of sacred solitude are no longer solely your own. There is still plenty of silence, but it’s warmer—kinder. Madara finds himself observing Hashirama’s every move with a keen wild interest that he has not felt since those days at the river so long ago, when he was desperate to find out everything he could about this strange boy, this miraculous child. They have been apart for so long. Hashirama is at once familiar and unknowable; a comfort and a mystery. 

He learns that Hashirama passes time in the mornings with a pair of dice, playing Pig at the breakfast table; he learns that he can tie a cherry stem into a knot with his tongue; that he carves all his own cookware and grows tiny brown button mushrooms in the garden behind the bench. He sears into his memory the exact way Hashirama holds his ink brush to his chin when he’s thinking of what to write next, and the exact shape of his crossed legs while he meditates, and the exact mischievous glint in his eye when he asks Madara to fetch them both a bottle of wine from underneath the kitchen cabinet.

And there are other things to look forward to besides all these. Most everything is moved out of the old Uchiha hideout in the mountains by now; all that remains is the shrine at the base of the throne room, and Madara spends most days there, sorting through old artifacts and salvaging everything of merit to the clan in its current iteration. He finds an ancient set of kagura suzu bells wrapped in a moldy indigo curtain on a stone shelf, and a bundle of pungent incense sticks wedged into a divot between two massive painted wall tiles. It’s a comfortable routine, especially with Hashirama waiting at home for him with tea boiling away on the hearth and a pair of slippers warming up for him by the fire. Summer is fading fast now, and he’s grateful for the extra warmth.

* * *

Madara is sitting up in bed on that sixth night with Hashirama asleep beside him. The first chill of autumn has gotten into his bones (he’s not so young now, he reminds himself), and it’s harder for him to coax sparks from his fingertips and flames from his mouth. He’s thankful for Hashirama’s warm weight next to him under the covers. 

Absentmindedly, he sings under his breath. It’s an old Uchiha lullaby, one that he used to sing to Izuna on those sleepless, moonless cold nights long ago, something he had learned from his mother so many years ago that it feels more like a dream than a memory. He can still imagine her deep soft voice weaving in and out of his consciousness, haunting, eerie, almost inhuman. 

Hashirama stirs slightly as he sings. A strand of hair falls into his face. Unthinking, Madara tucks it behind his ear. 

“I didn’t know you could sing,” Hashirama murmurs sleepily.

Madara jumps. “You were awake the whole time?”

“Here and there,” Hashirama says. “Your voice is nice.”

Madara feels very much as if his face is glowing like a scarlet beacon in the otherwise dark room. He takes a deep breath, trying to reign in his madly-beating heart.

“I felt like I was flying over the clouds,” Hashirama says, in barely more than a whisper, “on a pair of silver wings.”

Madara is unable to stop the laugh that bursts forth from his throat. “What?”

“I mean it!” Hashirama says, pouting. “It was beautiful!”

They both go quiet for several moments. The silence echoes through the dark room, seeping into the blankets and crawling up the windowsill.

“Madara?” Hashirama says presently.

“Yes?”

“Tell me more about the Uchiha clan,” Hashirama murmurs. “There’s so much I want to know.”

Madara blinks in the dark. “Where should I start?”

“Anywhere,” says Hashirama.

“All right,” Madara sighs, casting around for a good subject that won’t give Hashirama nightmares. He continues in a much lower voice than before. “Well…our parties used to be the stuff of legend.”

Hashirama smiles faintly into the pillow. “Really?”

“I mean it,” Madara says. “Of course, most of the clan’s history is passed down through word of mouth…but I even found bits and pieces of festival stories in the old records up in the shrine last week. _ Everybody _ knows about the old Uchiha festivals.”

Hashirama curls up more tightly against Madara’s side. “What were they like?”

“Well, they lasted for a whole week,” Madara says, “during the bleakest part of winter—I suppose so that people had something to look forward to—and they had all the basic things, like archery and knife-throwing and one-on-one duels. There would always be a bonfire, a massive one, and all the children would make paper lanterns and send them up into the sky…Oh, and the food—and the _ fireworks, _ Hashirama! There’s a mural in the old shrine—I’ve got to show you sometime.”

Hashirama blinks up at him curiously.

“People danced for three days straight,” Madara continues, “until their shoes were falling apart and the soles of their feet were bloody—And the fans, and the masks, oh—everyone had masks, owls and hawks and cats and birds and tengu…”

“Like all those masks you brought back from the shrine the other day?” Hashirama murmurs. Madara nods.

“I’ve never seen them so extravagant as they used to be during our great-grandparents’ time,” he says. “We never had the money for it, you know, when I was growing up—we just threw bonfire parties around New Years, to celebrate everyone who had awakened the Sharingan. But legends say that during one festival, more than a hundred years ago, with all the chakra and emotions running high, the clan actually created a…”

Madara pauses. It seems awfully quiet all of a sudden. He looks down. Hashirama is fast asleep in his lap.

“Lightning storm,” he finishes quietly. “Oh, hell.”

He curls up next to Hashirama, weariness hitting him all at once with relentless intensity. It’s blessedly warm under the covers, and before he knows it, his eyes are closing. He dreams of carved tengu masks and great fireballs the size of meteors, and of Hashirama’s warm body fitting perfectly against his.

* * *

Madara returns from the mountain shrine the next afternoon disgruntled and muddy, having crawled through a field of briars in order to retrieve a pair of jesses that his favorite peregrine had decided to drop down a ravine.

“Madara, turn around,” Hashirama says. Madara frowns. He does. 

“Oh, my,” Hashirama says, dropping a handful of scrolls all over the floor. He starts to laugh.

“What?”

“Your hair,” Hashirama wheezes. “Look at all the briars in your hair, Madara.” He moves through the kitchen, runs his warm hands through the long black tangle. Madara freezes on the spot from his touch, unable to speak, unable to breathe.

“When did you last brush it?” Hashirama says, sounding like he doesn’t really want to know the answer. “It’s completely matted. Come and sit down.”

He leads Madara to the futon and sits him down on it. “I can brush my own hair, Hashirama,” Madara calls after him as he sprints into the bedroom for a hairbrush.

“Clearly,” Hashirama says, brandishing the hairbrush at him as he emerges from the bedroom, “You cannot. Now lie back.” The corner of his mouth is twitching.

Hashirama sits next to him on the futon and gets to work, leaning intently over Madara’s head, untangling one wild knot at a time. His hair falls in Madara’s face like a long dark curtain. Every so often he sets the brush aside to pick apart a particularly stubborn tangle, and a small collection of liberated brambles—and other found objects—grows steadily larger on the coffee table. Hashirama’s hands feel feather-light in his hair, his fingers running against his scalp in a way that makes him sigh with pleasure and sink farther down into the futon.

Hashirama frowns. His hands stop moving. “Is this blood?” he says.

“Hmm?” Madara says, finding that he’s closed his eyes and is starting to drift off. “Probably.”

It’s as if years worth of stress, of tension and tragedy and grief, are washing off him in great warm waves. Occasionally Hashirama will speak—things like “I just found five ryō in here," and “Is that half a seashell?”—but for the most part, it's wonderfully, fantastically quiet. Lying still in Hashirama’s house, with Hashirama combing through his hair, feels so _ good. _ He could sit like this for days and not want for anything at all. 

Twenty minutes later, Madara snaps out of his blissful daze and sits up so abruptly he almost smacks Hashirama in the nose with his forehead.

“What is it?” says Hashirama, looking wildly around the room. 

“Someone’s coming,” Madara says.

Hashirama sits up ramrod-straight at once. “Who is it?”

“I’m not infusing any sensory chakra,” Madara says. “It’s someone I don’t recognize…but it seems familiar…” 

Hashirama’s face flashes in horror. He reaches for Madara’s hand.

“Quick—put your arm—”

Madara edges away from him on the futon. “What are you doing?” 

“What do married couples do?” Hashirama says, apparently trying to whisper and shout at the same time. “How—how do they answer the door?”

“How should I know? I’ve never been married, Hashirama!” Madara hisses, shoving him off the futon. “Just do whatever you want!”

Hashirama crosses the room. Madara can feel his chakra blossoming in great nervous waves.

“It’s Mito,” Hashirama murmurs, peering through the door. His chakra settles. He turns around. “It’s Mito,” he announces loudly.

“Heard you the first time,” Madara says, but he’s smiling as he stands up. 

“We are going out to dinner,” Mito proclaims, throwing open the door before Hashirama can turn the handle. “Hashirama, your cousin is coming too. Don’t you roll your eyes at me, Madara, now come on and get dressed. It’s about damn time all four of us caught up.”

* * *

“So, Mito,” Hashirama says over dessert, “How are you enjoying village life so far?”

She shares a smug look with Tōka. “Oh, it’s excellent,” she says. “Better than I could have possibly imagined.”

Tōka raises one eyebrow. “You flatter me.” She takes a sip of coffee. “I think.”

“You can’t _ imagine _ how relieved I was to find Tōka again after the alliance ceremony,” Mito says, laying her hand on top of Tōka’s. “Luckily neither of us are particular subtle creatures—darling, flex for me.”

Tōka pulls up her sleeve, revealing an impressive bicep, which she then flexes so hard she snaps her fishnets.

“All you Senju are the same,” Madara mutters, glancing at Hashirama out of the corner of his eye.

“Oh, come on, Madara,” Hashirama says, laying his broad hand on Madara’s back. “You know we can’t help showing off when we get together.” He regards Mito and Tōka solemnly, shielding his mouth with one hand, and then says in a carrying stage whisper, “He’s the exact same way; don’t be fooled.”

“Hmph,” Tōka says, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms. “So much for ‘opposites attract,’ I see.”

“Oh,” Madara says as Mito laughs loudly into her coffee cup, “we’re _ plenty _ opposite; don’t you worry.”

“How’s married life treating you two, anyway?” Tōka says, hooking her arm around Mito’s.

“Married life!” Mito cries out, laughing even harder. She sets her coffee down with a sharp _ clack. _“You two aren’t seriously still preten—?”

Hashirama has a minor coughing fit. Madara elbows Mito under the table. She glares at him.

“What?” she hisses. He shakes his head, eyes wide.

“So,” Hashirama says loudly, clapping Tōka on the shoulder, “About that rainstorm the other night—” 

Mito looks very pointedly at him. She gestures to his eyes.

“Genjutsu,” she mouths at him. “Talk to me.”

Madara stares at her, activates the genjutsu. The table shudders for a moment before dissolving into colorless mist.

* * *

“What’s going on?” Mito says, pacing back and forth inside the genjutsu. “I take it Tōka doesn’t know you’re not really married.”

Madara shakes his head. “Besides us, it’s just you,” he says. “And your father, and the Yamanaka matriarch, I suppose, but we haven’t heard anything from them.”

She nods. “I see.”

“Did Tōka notice anything?” Madara says, his heart sinking in his chest.

Mito purses her lips. “I don’t think so,” she says. “And even if she did, I’m sure Hashirama can salvage the situation somehow.”

Madara nods. “He does have a talent for… salvaging.”

“I’m sorry for nearly blowing your cover,” Mito says quietly. “But…” She pauses, fiddles with the bracelets on her left wrist for a moment. “Are you two _ sure _ you really want to do this? Just pretend to be married for…what, the rest of your lives?”

Madara groans and puts his head in his hands. “Don’t make me question it any more than I already have,” he says, thinking of Hashirama’s kind black eyes, his long hair, his comfortable chakra. “It’s bad enough living with him. I don’t know how much longer I…” 

He trails off. He can’t shake the memory of Hashirama’s soft hands in his hair just this afternoon, and the careful way he had picked all the briars out—the same careful way he tends to his plants and whittles wood and ties the knot of his haori each morning; the way Madara had felt like he could have simply lay in his lap for hours and not had to worry about the future for as long as he lived, the way he had felt more peaceful and content than he had thought possible since the war…since Izuna…

She searches his face. “You’re in love with him,” she says.

Madara’s mouth pops open. Ah. So he’s been unwittingly broadcasting his thoughts across the genjutsu space the whole time. He can feel himself blushing a deep red. He quickly closes his mouth. “That’s not—it doesn’t matter,” he stammers, avoiding her eyes.

“Are you ever going to tell him?”

Madara sets his jaw. “No.”

She looks down into the rippling gray space below them. “Oh, Madara.”

Madara doesn’t answer. The pale gray of his genjutsu slowly bleeds to black.

* * *

Hashirama will never love him back as long as he lives.

He’s certain of it. It doesn’t matter. Good things always come to an end, in Madara’s experience. He’s been foolish, to avoid thinking about the future, because he and Hashirama are being flung into it, and the longer he goes without thinking about it, the harder it will be when it arrives… 

He loves Hashirama. Hashirama will never love him back. It almost makes it easier, Madara thinks, in some twisted way, knowing that if something were to happen to either of them, well—Hashirama would be all right without him.

Not that he’s going to simply sit around waiting for something bad to happen—it’s just not how he does things.

_ Hashirama will never love you back. _

* * *

They find the item by chance, while searching through the Uchiha clan’s mountain shrine for more festival artifacts. “Look at this,” Hashirama calls, beckoning Madara over. Madara lights a spark on his fingertips and joins him in the back corner of the shrine, behind the old curtain.

The sealing formula holding the whole thing together has faded somewhat, and the wood of the case has rotted away, leaving only a pair of rusted hinges and a curving metal handle. Something glints unmistakably back at them in the dimness. It seems to glow faintly from within, even through the thick layer of black dust.

“That’s—” Hashirama says.

Madara nods. “Ancient booze.”

“It looks like honey wine,” Hashirama whispers, peering at the bottle’s dark contents, “but more…well—_lethal.” _

“I dare you to open it,” Madara says immediately, grinning.

“You should be the one to open it!” Hashirama says. “You’re the Uchiha among us!”

Madara puts his chin in his hand, frowning. He surveys the bottle intently. “All right,” he says, “but you have to drink it first.”

Hashirama looks at him solemnly. “Only if you drink some too.”

“Deal.”

They shake hands. Madara picks up the bottle. Black dust comes off onto his hands. The faded label reads _ Indra’s Brew. _ He tears the wax off with his teeth, then goes after the cork.

“It’s—really—stuck—” he grits out, after several unproductive seconds. He sets the bottle down and pulls a tiny dagger out of his hip pouch. “Here we go.”

Upon being impaled, the cork slides out easily, producing an ominous deep _ pop _ that echoes around the shrine in a way reminiscent of Shukaku emerging from its tea kettle. Immediately, they are greeted with aroma so powerful that Madara feels like his eyebrows are being singed off: some ungodly combination of honey, cinnamon, ginger, cayenne, several other spices that he can’t name, and something else that Madara can only assume is concentrated essence of sheer hell. He glances at Hashirama, suddenly unable to stop himself from smiling. He already feels lightheaded just from being in the same room as the open bottle. “Having second thoughts?” he says, biting back laughter.

“We _ shook _ on it,” says Hashirama, whose eyes are watering fiercely. Madara passes him the bottle. He puts it to his lips and tips his head back with a shudder. Madara has a fleeting feeling of impending doom, thinking perhaps that Indra’s Brew really _ is _ lethal, but then he remembers he’s in the company of the most competent medic of the modern era. Hashirama looks as if he’s about to cry as he finishes his sip of the evil substance.

“Holy _ shit,” _ Hashirama wheezes, after wordlessly opening and closing his mouth for several seconds like an extremely shell-shocked trout. “Here.”

Madara accepts the bottle, trepidation creeping towards him again. He swirls the liquid around, squeezing his eyes shut as the scent wafts towards him. “Strong, is it?”

Hashirama shakes his head. _“Strong_ doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

Before he can come to his senses and change his mind, Madara takes a massive gulp of Indra’s Brew. It’s like touching his tongue to an active volcano. The stuff hits him like a sucker punch; all at once, multitudes of white stars are bursting behind his eyes; his fingertips are tingling; his throat is burning sun-surface-hot; and for one powerful moment, he feels like he could legitimately breathe fire without weaving a single handsign.

Madara sets the bottle down, still blinking white stars out of his eyes.

“Indra’s Brew is…is…” Hashirama waves his hand vaguely, unable to come up with an adequate qualifier. He picks up the bottle again. “I’m having some more.”

A serene, floating sensation is beginning to set in, just from the one sip he’s taken so far. “Oh, _ shit,” _ Madara says, and then dissolves into laughter. “Imagine…imagine…” 

He can’t seem to get the words out. Hashirama passes the bottle to him again and he takes another prolonged drink from it. He’s starting to appreciate the mixture’s violent heat, or maybe (as the more rational brain of his brain suggests) he’s just gone from reasonably clearheaded to utterly blasted in the span of about thirty seconds and wouldn’t even be bothered if his head happened to catch on fire.

“We should—we should come up here more often,” Hashirama says. “Maybe…” 

“Imagine if,” Madara gets out, finally, “Imagine if your brother could see us right now…”

Hashirama lets out a great _ “Ha!” _ of laughter, then slides down the side of the wall until his chin is sunk into his chest. “Hey, Madara,” he says.

Madara looks over at him, the bottle raised to his lips. “Huh?” he says cleverly.

“Do you remember that time…we were pretty young…but we were on the battlefield…” 

Madara frowns, tilts his head at him. “You’ll need to be more specific,” he says. “We did that a lot back then.”

“Do you remember the first time you saw me get stabbed?” Hashirama says with a snort.

Madara gasps. _ “Yes,” _ he cries out. “When Hikaku impaled you through the shoulder—”

“And I just kept fighting and didn’t even notice—”

“And I stopped fucking _ dead _ in the middle of the battlefield, because I thought you were seconds from dying—and then you pulled the dagger out like it was nothing—”

“You should have seen the look on your _ face,” _ Hashirama gasps, and they fall all over each other laughing once more. For a long time, they are unable to stop.

“Imagine the look on your brother’s face when he comes back and finds out that we’re still fake-married,” Madara says at last. Hashirama sits bolt upright, dislodging Madara’s arm and sending him sprawling into the wall. He pinches his nose, disgruntled.

“Indra’s Brew just gave me the _ best _ idea,” Hashirama says, his eyes glinting in a way that makes Madara’s palms sweat.

* * *

“Hurry, hurry, hurry,” Madara gasps, gripping the side of Tobirama’s desk so hard his knuckles are white.

“I’m coming, I’m coming—Madara, he’s not coming back for another two days, we’ve got plenty of time to do this—” 

“Come on, there’s nobody watching us right now,” Madara says. “And I’m not doing this once I’ve sobered up. One—two—”

“Wait!” Hashirama yelps. “Are we lifting on three or after three?”

“Damn it, Hashirama, just lift the fucking desk!”

“All right, all right,” Hashirama says, lifting the desk up so abruptly that he smacks Madara in the nose with the opposite end. Madara staggers backwards into the wall as a drawer falls out of the desk with a loud _ thunk. _ Fish hooks and hemostats scatter everywhere.

“Ah,” Madara says. “Shit.”

“It’s all right,” says Hashirama, surveying the damage. “You take care of this, I’ll get the desk.” He hefts it up again effortlessly. “Meet me out in the garden, and bring that drawer with you.”

Madara kneels on the floor, attempts to bully his eyes into focusing on the scattered fish hooks. He picks up a handful, reconsiders, and retrieves the broom from the closet in order to sweep them clumsily back into the drawer.

“Who has an entire fish devoted to—I mean an entire desk devoted to fishing?” Madara says as Hashirama attempts to re-enter the front hallway, stubbing his toe on a massive flowerpot as he goes. Hashirama laughs loudly.

“He has more than a desk,” he says. “You should have seen his studio at the old compound. Come on, let’s get the bed.”

Twenty minutes later, they are standing side-by-side in the garden, surveying their handiwork. All of Tobirama’s bedroom furniture is perfectly arranged in the grass, down to the placement of his slippers by the rug and the empty water glass on his desk.

“I _ told _ him we were planning on expanding the garden once you moved in,” Hashirama says, biting his lip. “We’re as good as our word.”

Madara looks at him. The hilarity of his words are beginning to sink in. Within seconds, they’re both doubled over laughing in Hashirama’s peonies.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t rain,” Madara says.

“Oh, he’ll feel right at home if it does,” Hashirama reassures him, and they both fall over laughing again. It feels so _ good _ to laugh, Madara thinks, and in his euphoric state, he is overcome with a rare, drunken recklessness.

“Let’s…let’s go out,” he says, squinting up at the setting sun.

Hashirama surfaces, covered in mud, wiping a tear from his eye. “Huh?”

“Out,” Madara repeats, rather louder than he had intended. “You know—to a bar or something. I heard Naori and Hikaku just opened up a little place down past the bridge.”

Hashirama perks up slightly. Madara swears his loose strands of hair stand straight up. “I’ll go get some money from my case,” he says, sitting up with an almighty groan. “Meet me back here in fifteen minutes, and we can hit all the good spots—” 

“On second thought—let’s go somewhere outside the village,” Madara says quickly. “And you are _ not _ gambling, because I am _ not _ sober enough to stop you from betting away our house, or that damn necklace of yours—or, heaven forbid, the entire fucking _ village—” _

“Just one tiny scratchcard,” Hashirama says, pouting mightily. “Please?” Madara spots real, fat tears glistening in his eyes. He sighs.

_ “One,” _ he says severely, holding up his index finger for emphasis. He stands up, brushing the mud off his knees. “And I’m getting changed first.”

Hashirama apparently finds this extremely funny. 

“Don’t move,” Madara says, shoving Hashirama rather harder than he had intended back into the grass. He lands with a _ thump_, still laughing. “I’m going inside.”

* * *

“It’s lucky we decided to pretend to be married,” Hashirama murmurs to Madara as they walk, leaning heavily on his blue crushed-velvet shoulder, “because I don’t think I’d be able to walk in a straight line if you weren’t holding onto me.”

At that precise moment, Madara trips over a root and they both go down. “Sorry,” he mutters, spitting out a mouthful of dirt. Hashirama still can’t hold in his laughter, and to his vague horror, Madara finds that he can’t hold in his either. He tries to imagine what people would think if they could see Senju Hashirama, the God of Shinobi, and Uchiha Madara, terror of the Uchiha clan, giggling drunkenly together at the bottom of a ditch.

* * *

The cold night air has something of a sobering effect on Madara, and by the time they reach the bath house, he’s more cold and tired than anything else. Hashirama seems to be having a good time, though, and as they sit at the bar together Madara puts his chin in his hand and watches him. This is as much Hashirama’s battlefield as the real thing is, Madara thinks. Here he is, boisterous and clever and loud and laughing and beautiful; conversation comes second-nature to him—he’s incredible to watch—

“Be right back,” Hashirama says, standing up from the bar and only stumbling a little as he weaves his way through the crowd towards the bathrooms. Madara fiddles with his sake cup, somehow not too keen on drinking from it anymore. He sighs a deep sigh. Going out had been _ his _ idea, hadn’t it. Fuck, he really wants to go home. He misses the comfortable silence that they've been sharing, the feeling of not needing to be anywhere or do anything... 

“Damn Indra,” Madara mutters, closing his eyes. He must still be a little drunk, because he rather loses track of things as soon as his eyesight is gone, and he has no idea how long it’s been before Hashirama’s chakra edges slowly back towards his own.

“Madara?” Hashirama’s voice says, close.

Madara opens his eyes, takes his chin out of his hand. “Hmm?”

Hashirama is back. He fiddles with his necklace as he climbs back into his seat. Then Madara watches as he lifts his index finger to his mouth and chews avidly on his fingernail. He frowns. He hasn’t seen Hashirama bite his nails since they were both teenagers.

“Um, please don’t take this personally,” he says, “because you’re a great person, and I love your company, and your sense of humor, and—and everything—” 

He’s staring at the pale strip of exposed skin down Madara’s chest.

Madara frowns deeper. “What exactly are you getting at?”

“I was just thinking recently…well, just now, really…” Hashirama says, and then stops dead and glances furtively behind them at the bar, as if he’s afraid everyone in the room is eavesdropping on their conversation.

Madara rolls his eyes, drumming his fingers on the bar. “Just spit it out, Hashirama!”

Hashirama leans in closer. His lips brush Madara’s left ear. “From a purely physical standpoint,” he murmurs, in such a low voice that it sends shivers crawling up Madara’s back, “Just imagine the sex we could have.”

At first Madara is convinced he’s misheard him somehow. He blinks. Then it hits him, hard. He takes a deep breath, and then lets it out, and doesn’t say _ This is the second time I’m going to turn you down because you’re drunk and you won’t say what you mean when you’re sober, because who are we kidding, you are much too good for me and I don't know how much longer I can go on like this, not to mention you probably won't even remember this tomorrow— _

“Believe me,” Madara says instead, his jaw clenched tight, “I’ve thought about it.”

He can feel his chakra burning the air around him, igniting every dust mote within a five meter radius. “I’m going home,” he decides with venom, standing up from the bar so abruptly he knocks over his empty glass with a clatter. Hashirama looks up at him, frowning.

“Right,” he says, looking a bit as if Madara has just slapped him in the face. “I’ll—I’ll meet you there.”

_ “My _ home,” Madara snaps. “Don’t bother coming. I’d like to be alone.”

* * *

Madara slides out of his velvet robes and hangs them up on the hook on the back of the bedroom door. He puts a plate of tuna out on the porch for the neighborhood cats, lights his dusty desk lamp, and then sits on the side of the bed and unwraps the bandages from his shins, squinting in the half-light. Then he goes into the bathroom, washes his face, brushes his teeth, and examines his reflection.

The house is overwhelmingly quiet. The last cicada of the season gives its faint dying buzz somewhere outside. His reflection, pale and frowning, stares back at him.

“Hashirama, I’m in love with you,” says Madara. The bathroom mirror gives no response.

He walks back into the bedroom, blows out his desk lamp, climbs into bed, and gives a long, exhausted sigh. The full weight of the past few months is bearing down on him all at once. His bed is so cold and small. There is a deep yearning in his chest, a profound, unstoppable ache that puts tension in his shoulders, his jaw, his head and neck. He can just hear Hashirama’s soft, low voice whispering to him, beckoning him closer into his warmth; can feel Hashirama’s warm hands on his back, his shoulders; imagines his deft fingers sliding down his thighs.

All his frustration, all his anger is evaporating, turning to arousal; he runs one hand flat down his chest towards his pelvis, takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and begins.


	5. kyūjutsu

For the first time in a long time, Hashirama wakes up quite alone. A rooster is crowing outside, and as he rolls over on the pillow, his hair comes loose from its tie in long shining dark strands. A faint scratching noise is coming from on top of his bookshelf. He sits up. He must have turned on the record player last night to coax himself to sleep; now the needle is bobbing uselessly up and down as he watches. He stands up from the bed and lifts up the needle absentmindedly.

He was mending things with Madara. They were on a good path…everything was going so smoothly…He remembers Madara’s furious face at the hot springs last night, and his boiling, angry chakra, and the final sort of way in which he had stalked out of the bar and slammed the door behind him. He can’t stand the thought of Madara becoming a stranger again. He misses Madara’s warmth, the way his hair would prickle against the back of Hashirama’s neck, the gentle way he would stir each morning and murmur quiet nothings with one eye sliding half-open. He has to make it up to him, somehow, in any way possible, no matter the cost.

Is it possible to feel homesick in your own home, Hashirama thinks, if a part of your home is missing?

* * *

Hashirama drinks his scalding tea for breakfast in silence, and leaves for the office much earlier than he would have ordinarily. When he gets there, Madara and Mito have already arrived, and are talking very seriously and in very low voices in the corner of the office by the spare folded-up meeting table. They fall silent as soon as Hashirama enters the room. Mito is looking right at him, biting her lip; Madara is staring at the floor.

“I’m off to the shrine,” Madara says after several seconds of this silent agony, sounding like he’ll gut anyone who dares dispute this, and continues to avoid Hashirama’s eyes as he leaves the office, his arms crossed over his chest. Mito gives a long, heavy sigh.

Hashirama approaches her tentatively. “What was that about?” he says.

Mito rolls her eyes at him. His heart sinks horribly. “Hashirama, you’re a smart man,” she says grimly. _ “Figure it out.” _

* * *

Tobirama returns to the village the next morning, severely sunburned and looking like he’s just had the time of his life. 

“I’m taking a vacation every other week from now on,” he tells Hashirama, dropping off a pile of scrolls in Hashirama’s in-tray. “I’ve got to run home and get changed before the meeting. I’ll be right back.”

Hashirama thinks vaguely of Tobirama’s now-waterlogged bedroom furniture waiting for him in the garden. It does little to lift his spirits.

When Madara arrives five minutes later, he gives Hashirama a quick, curt nod, leans up against the wall, and stares intently at the floor again. It’s something of an improvement from yesterday.

“Madara?” Hashirama says.

Madara makes an indistinct noise in his throat in response.

“Do you…remember anything from the other night?” Hashirama ventures cautiously. _ Obviously you do, because you’re avoiding me, _ he doesn’t dare say.

Madara crosses his arms, and counters Hashirama’s question with one of his own: “What do _ you _ remember?”

Hashirama hesitates. Everything is still a little…_ fuzzy _ after their trip back from the shrine. The thing he remembers most is Madara’s velvet blue robe, though he can’t discern why this detail, out of all of them, has wedged itself so securely in his mind. “Moving Tobirama’s furniture,” he says slowly. “And us falling in a ditch on the way to the hot springs.”

Something lighthearted and mischievous flashes very briefly across Madara’s face before it’s replaced with an even deeper look of disappointment.

“And?” Madara scowls. “Anything else?

“Well, I swore off alcohol,” Hashirama admits, a little sheepishly.

“Oh,” Madara says. “That’s...good. I’m glad.”

There’s a disturbance in the hallway. Tobirama is back. “Seven,” he says briskly, holding up fingers to demonstrate. 

Hashirama blinks. “What?”

A smile flits across Tobirama’s face. “Seven out of ten.”

Hashirama frowns up at him, uncomprehending.

“Points,” he clarifies. “For creativity, you know. And for not losing a single thing out of my desk drawers. I’m leaving it out to dry for now. I’ll bring it all back inside later.”

Hashirama manages a weak smile. Madara doesn’t move.

Tobirama rolls his eyes at them both. “What’s gotten into you two?”

Hashirama doesn’t answer. He has no idea where to start. But— 

“Tired,” Madara snaps. “All the sex we’re having. It’s just _ exhausting.” _

Tobirama blinks very slowly at them and then retreats into the meeting room, massaging his temples.

“For the record, that was what you told me,” Madara mutters, once he’s gone, “the other night.”

Hashirama feels his eyes practically pop out of his head. He can feel himself turning bright red. Had he really _ said _ that? What on _ earth _ had possessed him to say that? His heart sinks. He knows Madara isn’t just making this up. He can remember bits of it, now, sitting at the bar and shouting at Madara as if they had both been standing on opposite ends of a large field, and then leaning in close and blurting out _that _monstrosity, of all things. He’s taking on the role of Madara’s husband _much_ too seriously, he reasons. He needs to step back. Madara probably thinks he’s some sort of disgusting, sex-crazed maniac. His chest hurts. He wants to curl up in a ball and turn back time and do it all over.

“Madara?” he says.

Madara clicks his tongue in acknowledgement. Hashirama knows full well that that’s the best he’s going to get right now. He plunges on.

“I really overdid it that night,” he says slowly. “I got so carried away…”

Madara scoffs.

Hashirama swallows nervously. “I guess I just wanted to say…I’m sorry. For, um, propositioning you, and…for whatever other outlandish things I said. I’d take it all back if I could, believe me.”

Madara stares coldly ahead. “The Daimyō is here,” he says. 

“Ah,” stammers Hashirama, twisting his sweaty fingers together in his lap. He glances down the hallway at the incoming entourage of samurai. “So he is.”

* * *

Madara has gone back to avoiding eye contact with him at the meeting that morning. 

“Hear me out,” Hashirama is saying. “My proposal is this.”

He glances around the room. The Daimyō looks decidedly apprehensive. Tobirama is frowning. _ Where are you going with this, Anija, _ he mouths across the table. Madara is glaring out the window, drumming his fingers on the table with one hand, resting his chin in the palm of the other. 

“A festival to honor the Uchiha clan,” Hashirama says in a carrying voice, not daring to let his nervousness show. “Think of it as a sign of good faith, as a testament to the Senju clan’s faith in the alliance and the Uchiha clan as a whole—_and _its leader,” he finishes, glancing pointedly at Madara.

Madara’s face changes. He slowly lifts his chin out of his hand, unblinking, his eyes growing wide as he stares across the table at Hashirama. 

The Daimyō flounders. “Well—well—we must make sure that all parties present are in accord before we can provide the necessary funding—”

“The Uchiha clan would be happy to host such an event,” Madara says immediately. 

Hashirama beams. “Excellent!” he says, clapping his hands together. “Really excellent! We’ll begin preparations immediately. And if the Daimyō and his entourage isn’t able to fund it—” 

“It’s not that we’re not _ able_,” the Daimyō says quickly. “I’m just not sure if it’s _ prudent _ to…”

“How long _ will _ we have to prepare, by the way?” Madara says to Hashirama, as if the Daimyō isn’t even there.

“I was thinking we’d hold it sometime in early- to mid-October,” Hashirama says loudly, “we’ll just have to be careful that it doesn’t get rained out—”

Madara grins. “No rain dates,” he says. “A little water has never stopped the Uchiha before.”

“Well, we’ll have to secure _ some _ indoor space, at least,” Hashirama says. “The Academy is large enough—and near enough to the Uchiha district—”

“Perfect,” says Madara. “I’ll talk to Naori today about procuring a list of potential vendors…and we’ll need at least _ some _sort of itinerary before the end of the week…” 

Tobirama is glancing from Hashirama to Madara as if he’s watching a table tennis rally. 

“Is this all agreeable to you, then?” Hashirama says, peering over at the Daimyō with a smile. Madara looks over too, raises an impatient eyebrow.

“Oh,” the Daimyō says, throwing his hands up in defeat. “Yes. Of course.”

“Everyone in favor?” Hashirama says. Tobirama is the only one who doesn’t raise his hand. 

As they’re cleaning up afterwards, a paper airplane sails across the meeting table and bounces off of Hashirama’s chest. He picks it up with a frown, flattens it out with careful fingers. There’s one word written on it, in Madara’s crabbed writing.

_ Thanks _

Hashirama brightens somewhat and clutches the letter to his chest, biting his lower lip.

“Well, _ he _ seemed awfully cheerful today,” Tobirama remarks, watching Madara retreat down the hallway with a handful of mugs.

Hashirama smiles his best deceptively-dangerous-but-still-maddeningly-pleasant smile. “Tobirama, lighten up,” he says. “If you really knew him you’d know that Madara is a perfectly cheerful person.”

Tobirama’s scowl deepens. “Anija, you only think that because he’s like this all the time around _ you.” _

He gathers his scrolls up into a bundle. Hashirama bites back something like, _ Well, you know, that’s not true at all actually, _ because he knows that if he gets on the subject of Madara, he won’t be able to shut himself up.

* * *

There’s a lot of work to be done still, of course. The Uchiha district is still under construction, to begin with. And there’s the regular harvest season to stay on top of—Hashirama oversees that work himself. It’s a lot easier to feed a clan—nay, a village—when you’re not constantly at war, Hashirama thinks. The crops are coming along well—all the rain has certainly helped matters. Hashirama’s pumpkins are the size of boulders now, and he, Mito, and Tōka spend many an afternoon canning beans and tomatoes and mushrooms in preparation for the coming winter. Even Madara, busier than ever now, can’t resist stopping by the downstairs office for a strong cup of tea and a bite of zucchini bread.

Every day he wakes up filled with relief. He and Madara are friends again, but it’s—tentative. Safe. _ Too _ safe. Neither of them are baring their souls to the other the way they used to do, and whenever his mind wanders nowadays, it’s always clouded with doubts. Were they _ ever _ truly friends? Were they ever truly on the same page? He hopes so. Madara is still living in his house, but he’s rarely there. He’s like a ghost, flitting from room to room, never staying for too long, lest he—well, lest he what? Hashirama doesn’t know. 

But there’s no time to dwell on it for too long, because the Daimyō now wants them to pick someone to represent the village, lend it some legitimacy in the political realm. Obviously, Hashirama suggests Madara for the position. And then the whole idea gets put completely on hold, because before they know it, the festival is upon them.

* * *

The morning before the festival, Madara arrives at the office with a bundle of scrolls in his right hand, a piece of plain toast in his mouth, and a large scarecrow tucked under his left arm. He tosses the scrolls on the desk, then carries the scarecrow over to the window and props it up against the wall. Hashirama watches him wonderingly. The thing has a monstrous upside-down radish for a head, positioned with the taproot sticking out of the top like some sort of horrible tapered cowlick. A pair of almonds serve as its eyes, and its mouth is carved into the radish flesh in a wide, rather dopey grin. A pair of old striped hakama hang off its burlap body. Madara straightens out the scarecrow’s pants, wolfing down his toast as he goes. 

“Is—” Hashirama bites his lip, trying very hard not to laugh. “Is that me?”

_ “No,” _ Madara cries, indignant. Hashirama detects a hint of panic in his voice. “Some of Izuna’s old friends made it as a target for the archery contest tomorrow. It’s not supposed to be anybody specific.”

Hashirama raises one eyebrow.

“Although…” Madara trails off, regarding the scarecrow with his lips pursed. “The resemblance is…striking.” He looks at Hashirama, very seriously. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“No,” Hashirama chuckles, “I don’t mind at all.” As if a few arrows could have any effect on him, radish or not.

The rest of the morning drags slowly by without further incident. It’s freezing cold in the office. In between bouts of paperwork, Hashirama casts frequent glances at the scarecrow in its corner. It seems to smile mockingly at him whenever he looks.

* * *

It’s not quite snowing the next morning, but close to it. The skies are a dazzling, opaline white; Hashirama can see his breath, and the closer he gets to the Uchiha district, the air is tinged with blue smoke and spice. Hashirama wanders through the streets, spotting Hikaku and Naori tying up a long red banner over the doorway to the Academy; someone is playing a lilting song on a shamisen on the next street corner, and two drummers with bunches of feathers in their hair join in, grinning as Hashirama deposits a pile of ryō into the overturned wooden mask by the musicians’ feet. Every so often he catches a whiff of catnip in the smoke.

It seems that everyone is carrying fans of varying sizes—not just the Uchiha. Glowing red lanterns adorned with Sharingan tomoe hang in every doorway. There are booths selling candles, incense, potpourri, dried meats; Hashirama passes by a weapons booth, selling everything from standard daggers to wire in every thickness imaginable to custom-made smoke bombs and curse seals, to a jar of items that look suspiciously like inky black eyeballs, labeled “for unmatched battle prowess.” There are people selling woven blankets, and pointed silk slippers, and all manner of necklaces and earrings and bangles. He smiles at the three ninneko engaged in serious conversation over a large communal bowl of smoked salmon, then receives a free sample of something with so much wasabi in it that he sneezes and drops the sachet of incense he’s just bought. Everyone within a twenty foot radius bursts into applause. All the Uchiha are wearing masks and cloaks in an array of dark colors: emerald green, silvery gray, deep purple, midnight blue, pure black—from the clan elders with their painted faces all the way down to the group of tiny children sitting in the shade of a large awning, watching some sort of genjutsu-enhanced shadow puppet show with rapt interest. Hikaku produces a kokyu and a bow from under his cloak, and soon the air is full with its quivering melody. A trio of dancers dressed in dark translucent silk run past him, giggling. What Hashirama is most struck by, more than any of the spectacle surrounding him, is how unambiguously _ happy _ everyone looks.

“Quite a turnout,” says Madara’s voice in his ear as he watches an old white-haired Uchiha lady roll out a long line of sweet-smelling white dough at the nearest booth. “Even the folks from Sora-ku came.”

Hashirama yelps and wheels around. Madara’s face is covered by an oval red-and-white mask with dark catlike slits for eyes. He’s back-combed his hair, and woven into its extra volume long blue-black feathers that glisten spectacularly in the light from the hanging lanterns. His gunbai is strapped to his back, and he’s wrapped in a dark hooded cloak with a scarlet sash tied around his waist.

Madara lifts his mask, revealing perfectly arched eyebrows and black and red painted lips. “You should have seen your face just now,” he says, chuckling. He lifts his long pipe to his mouth and takes a long drag from it. Hashirama smells lavender as he exhales. “Have you tried the wasabi mochi yet?”

“Oh, yes,” Hashirama says, remembering the experience vividly. “I—I was expecting green tea.”

Madara laughs. He reaches beneath his cloak and pulls out a tiny green fan. “Here—this is for you. And try the udon—you can put anything you want on it,” he says, gesturing to the bunches of dried takanotsume hanging above the booth. Hashirama eyes the peppers warily.

(He tries one anyway.)

* * *

Morning gives way to afternoon as Hashirama wanders the festival with Madara at his side. One of Izuna’s old friends braids dappled feathers into his hair and draws around his eyes in glittering blue paint. At lunch, they take a seat near the bonfire to warm their hands, and Madara manages to coax Tōka (laden with Uchiha-crafted weaponry) and Tobirama (who is acting as if Madara might try to force-feed him poison at any moment) into trying on Uchiha clothing.

Tōka twirls around in her stormy gray mantle, laughing. Tobirama looks mildly impressed with his deep blue one.

“It’s actually very comfortable,” he admits, and then refuses to take it off.

Sometime after noon, a loud bell sounds from somewhere on the edge of the Uchiha district, near the forest. Madara seizes Hashirama’s hand. His eyes are twinkling. “The contests are starting,” he says, failing to elaborate. They sprint to the pavilion hand in hand. By the time they arrive, a large crowd has already formed, and a young Uchiha teenager is standing up on the stage, aiming a bow and arrow across the field at—at—

Hashirama can’t hold back a great shout of laughter as he recognizes the hakama-clad scarecrow standing at the edge of the field, grinning its extremely foolish grin. It looks so out of place among the mostly-Uchiha crowd in their dark cloaks and mantles. 

“Our first contestant,” Hikaku announces loudly, to whoops and hollers from the crowd. “Uchiha Genki.”

“I can’t see anything from here,” Madara mutters. “Be back.” He lets go of Hashirama’s hand and slips into the crowd. Genki takes his first shot, and hits the scarecrow solidly in the left knee. The crowd bursts into enthusiastic applause. Then he misses twice.

“Hashirama,” says Naori’s warm voice, from directly behind him. “I’m glad you’re here. Enjoying yourself?”

“Oh!” Hashirama says. He turns around. “Yes!” he says, breathless. “We’ve got to do this every year from now on. We’ve just got to.” 

Naori smiles. “It’s been a while since the clan has been able to come together like this,” she says fondly. “Madara told me how you convinced the Daimyō to let us have the festival in the first place. I can’t tell you how much that means to him—to all of us.”

“It was nothing, really!” Hashirama says quickly. “It was Madara’s idea, anyway. He told me all these stories…there would be no festival if not for Madara.”

“He and the clan have been getting along much better ever since you came into the picture,” Naori says. “You two are good for each other, plain and simple.”

“Ah,” Hashirama stammers as another contestant steps up to the block and takes aim. “Thank you.”

Madara and Machiko have found each other now, and Hashirama watches fondly as Madara lifts Machiko onto his shoulders to give her a better view. 

“Anyone else want to have a go at Hash—I mean, our nondescript scarecrow?” Hikaku says, smiling out over the crowd. “Come on—don’t be shy, now—” 

Hashirama watches Madara from across the crowd, smiling. He’s set Machiko down. She’s gesturing wildly towards the stage, tugging on the fabric of Madara’s cloak in agonized supplication. Madara is shaking his head, smiling slightly. He says something to her, smoothing her bangs back off her forehead. She pouts, looking supremely disappointed.

A growing chant sounds from the crowd, picking up volume and vigor with each passing second—it starts as a murmur, a furtive whisper between a pair of adults, and then throngs of children are pointing and shouting shrilly, and teenagers in their cloaked and feathered huddles adjust their carved masks and laugh among themselves, anticipation flickering in their black-rimmed eyes. The crowd is coming alive, buzzing with activity, until it pulses like a heartbeat with its frenzied chant:_ Ma—da—ra! Ma—da—ra! Ma—da—ra! _

Madara looks taken aback at their enthusiasm. Machiko beams up at him, still clutching two fistfuls of his cloak. Then he smiles, waving one hand in mock defeat, and—to Hashirama’s intense delight—steps up onto the stage with a proud toss of his long black hair.

A hoarse roar wells up from the crowd as he takes his stand at the block, shaking out his hands and flexing his fingers. He carefully sets his gunbai aside, trades it for the quiver and bow. 

Hashirama watches, spellbound. Madara lifts the bow. As if by magic, a tremendous silence falls over the crowd as he notches his first arrow, pulls it taught. Hashirama realizes that, in his anticipation, he is holding his breath.

“Wait,” shouts someone from the crowd. His brother. The illusion is broken. 

Hashirama turns around. Tobirama is fighting his way to the edge of the crowd, just below the edge of the stage. He's still wearing the mantle. He waves a plain black blindfold in Madara’s direction. 

“Chakra suppressant,” Tobirama says, climbing the stage. “It’s only fair.”

“If you insist,” Madara concedes, smiling in a way that puts Hashirama’s stomach in knots.

Hashirama bites his lip. With the blindfold successfully applied, Tobirama slips back into the crowd. Madara lets the arrow fly. It whistles across the pavilion and stabs directly into the scarecrow’s chest.

The applause swells into a deafening, prolonged roar. Hashirama can’t resist shouting in delight along with them. It’s so _ wonderful _ to see Madara so happy. Madara lifts the blindfold, grinning. He undoes his scarlet sash with a flourish and tosses it into the crowd, which promptly erupts into euphoric screaming. Then he tears his cloak off. Hashirama’s fingers turn cold and his chest turns very, very hot. Madara is wearing the same crushed blue velvet robes under his cloak that he had worn that night at the hot springs. The crowd bursts into wild shouts and whistles as he slides the next arrow out of the quiver.

Madara’s face cracks into that mischievous smile once more, even wider than before. He blows a tiny puff of flame from his mouth, and the tip of the arrow is on fire. He glances out at the crowd, raising one painted eyebrow before lowering the blindfold over his eyes again.

Swift as a hawk, Madara draws the bow tight. Hashirama doesn’t even see the arrow go this time. One second there is nothing, and the next, the scarecrow is impaled through the chest for the second time and the crowd is screaming with excitement and stomping their feet as one huge living entity. The chanting starts up again. Madara grins, and gestures for them to settle down with one hand. He doesn’t even lift the blindfold this time, just notches another burning arrow and releases it with a sharp thrum, directly into the scarecrow’s heart. His velvet robes are barely clinging to his shoulders now, exposing his neck and his collarbones, and those exquisite dimpled muscles between his shoulder blades. The wild chanting matches Hashirama’s heartbeat exactly.

_ Madara. Madara. Madara. Madara… _

Three arrows to the heart, and Hashirama has made up his mind. There’s really nothing else for it, he thinks. Madara is really…well, hot.

It’s taken him until this precise moment to realize it, he thinks, but it’s coming at him full force now, and he really ought to make up for lost time. He’s astounded at his own ignorance, incredulous that he’s managed to miss it for this long. He imagines it took seeing Madara in his element like this, surrounded by his clanspeople, adulated, adored, with applause shaking the ground as he stands there up on the stage. And there he stands, his long black hair flying in his face, his blue velvet robes rippling loosely around him, exposing powerful shoulders hidden for so long under that plain dark mantle of his—then he thinks back to that evening at the bar all those weeks ago and, with sudden, violent clarity, remembers wanting to slide his hands under Madara’s velvet robes and touch his chest, splay his fingers over his scarred skin—then _ Ye gods, _ says his brain, _ what does Madara sound like when he comes? _

The thought practically knocks the wind out of him. He stands there, rigid, frozen in place for at least half a minute, until he’s able to force his brain back into motion. _ But we’re not actually married, _ he reminds himself.

_ But if we were— _

Madara takes a sweeping bow. The scarecrow has gone up in flames. Hashirama watches, utterly unable to look away. It’s hitting him like an avalanche now.

_ Oh—but if we were— _

He needs to get out of here. The thought grabs hold of him, swelling in an overwhelming surge, squeezing until he’s practically gasping for breath. He turns on his heel and runs.

* * *

Hashirama climbs the cliff, his thighs and shins burning with every step, unsure of his footing in the gray light from the impending sunset. This thing with Madara is no longer _ remotely _ platonic. Hashirama wonders for a moment if it ever _ was. _

They’re supposed to be _ married_. What had he said to Madara that night at the hot springs? That he bet they’d probably have great sex?

His face is burning. Madara must think he’s a total idiot. He’s so entangled in his own embarrassment that he hardly knows which direction he’s headed. The clouds are building now, and at the top of the cliff he comes to an enormous persimmon tree and sits down against its trunk with a long sigh. There’s a little mossy hollow at the edge of its roots. Inside it lies a tiny, roughly-carved black bird with a hooked beak. It’s surprisingly heavy, but small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. He inspects it for a moment, runs his thumb over the faded carved kanji on the bottom—he can make out _ Uchiha, _ and little else—before setting it gently back onto the moss. This tree is someone else’s memorial site. How short-sighted he’s been, to think that he alone comes up to the top of the mountain to ponder! He remembers sprinting up the cliff with Madara all those years ago, with the sun burning down the back of his neck, and thinking that from their golden vantage point they might have been sitting on top of the whole world—thinking that when he was with Madara he felt like he could do anything, everything. That had been the highest point of their nascent friendship, Hashirama thinks, leaving them nowhere to go but down…And that was just what had happened, wasn’t it? But Madara had come back…and things had gotten better…

Hashirama closes his eyes. He thinks back to the time they spent together as children, remembering little things—

_ How long have you known fire jutsu? _

—innocent, most of them— 

_ Haven’t you eaten yet today? _

—that should have clued him in—

_ You seem really proud of your eyes. _

—to Madara’s real identity. He had ignored them, back then, or tried to. He wants to cry—wants to tear up handfuls of grass and scatter the shreds across the clifftop—Madara, dear, beloved Madara—Madara, who he understands better than anyone else does, but who, for so long, has remained so agonizingly out of his reach… 

A warm tear leaks out of his left eye and rolls down his cheek. He gives a great sniff. There is a sound like multitudes of raindrops pattering on the ground. He opens his eyes. It’s just the wind; the evergreens whisper and bend together as if they’re telling each other secrets; the rest of the forest, bare now, sways, creaking, in the darkening sky. And then there’s a hissing noise like paper bomb about to go off, somewhere just behind him.

Hashirama jumps up, quickly glancing behind him and drawing a kunai—_Ambush, _ is the first panicked thought that flashes through his mind—before he looks up at the sky.

A pair of great glowing feathered dragons are curling over the valley, bursting into shimmering sparks and stars as they go. Of course—he had forgotten about the firework show. He watches the dragons circle over the bonfire once, snorting smoke and ash—_pop-pop-pop _ they say before they slink over the distant horizon, their resplendent claws brushing the treetops.

The skies open up and the rain pours down. Hashirama can still see the Uchiha bonfire glowing all the way from up here; can hear distant music and screaming and applause as the fireworks continue: a monstrous raven follows the dragons, then three whirling Sharingan tomoe, then an enormous Uchiha emblem studded with red and gold stars. Hashirama sits down resolutely in the mud, puts his face in his hands for a moment. His hair is sticking to his back. He lays his palm on the ground and grows a massive philodendron leaf. Then he curls up under it, feeling a little foolish, as if he’s a tiny frog under a stand of clover. 

A tremendous boom shudders through the air. Fireworks again? No—thunder. Even as he thinks the word, another bout of it rumbles through, and two forked lightning bolts puncture the sky like great talons. The wind is roaring now, and rainwater gushes off the cliffside in a multitude of tiny waterfalls.

Who would he be without Madara?

—He doesn’t want to think about it. The thought floods him anyway, as the rain floods the little puddles on the clifftop. His face is wet, though whether it’s from the rain or from his own crushing frustration, he can’t tell. He imagines himself looking in the mirror and seeing a man identical to his father: harsh and stern and unyielding; unable to bend, ready to break at any moment.

Madara is rather a wild thing himself, Hashirama supposes, shivering, pulling his haori up over his head to shield himself from the spitting rain, and it’s only natural that he’s fallen for him so hard.

* * *

Hashirama is up before sunrise, damp and muddy. He wrings out his haori between his hands, wincing from the amount of water that falls from it. Wet spirals of pine needles line the path down from the mountain, and as he walks back through the village, he’s surprised at the amount of branches down in the streets. The rooftops are heaped in mist. He comes across a glass bottle here, a spare shingle there; he rounds a corner and there’s a tiny river gouged out in the dirt path leading up to his front door. 

“Oh, dear,” Hashirama says aloud. All the bamboo along the side of the patio is bent down from the rain. He lifts a bunch of it back into an upright position, then freezes—he’s not alone. Madara is out on the patio with a broom, sweeping and dancing, humming a song that Hashirama recognizes from yesterday morning. He glides along, holding the broom as if it’s his partner—he twirls, leaps, lowers the broom into an unmistakable dip, and then without changing position knocks a downed pine branch off the patio and into a heap of sticks in the grass. 

Hashirama watches for a while, not wanting to disturb him, then figures the decent thing to do would be to help him clean things up. He tentatively steps out from behind the bamboo.

“That was quite some festival yesterday,” he says feebly, meaning every word.

Madara turns around. He drops the broom. His face lights up. He dashes over to him, actually grabs him by the forearms and gives him a good shake. “Hashirama!” he shouts.

Dazed, Hashirama allows himself to be shaken. “Huh?”

Madara drags him to the bench and sits them both down on it. He clasps Hashirama’s hands in his. “I—I don’t know how I can ever thank you. It was better than I could have imagined. All of it, I just…I don’t know what to say. It was like a dream.” 

He’s bursting with more energy and enthusiasm than Hashirama has seen. Not since they were children has Madara been this excited about _ anything. _ Even when they fought, back then—when he’d shown the most emotion—it had never been so _ warm _ like this.

“It was just like the old stories,” Madara says. “So much chakra…so much energy…” He smiles wryly. “We conjured a thunderstorm.”

“Hurricane, more like,” Hashirama says, surveying the wreckage. He picks up a sodden lantern and drapes it gingerly on the edge of the bench.

“It’s just like you said,” Madara says, smiling wider now. “We can’t help showing off; we’re too proud.”

“You should be,” Hashirama says quietly.

“What?”

Hashirama takes hold of Madara’s hands this time. “You _ should _ be proud,” he says again, giving Madara’s fingers a gentle squeeze. “You have so much to be proud of.” He had said _you_ meaning _the clan,_ but somehow it had turned out different than the way he had intended.

Madara’s smile changes, softens. “Thank you,” he says.

Something flutters in Hashirama’s chest when he sees those familiar smile lines. The embrace happens almost unconsciously; they’re moving closer towards each other, hands reaching, bodies colliding, and then Hashirama wraps his arms around Madara’s back and takes a deep inhale of that familiar spice-smoke-sweat smell, Madara’s hair prickling against his nose. Madara hugs him back, puts his chin on Hashirama’s shoulder. He lets out a long breath.

Hashirama can feel his heartbeat like this. The mist breaks, and dappled sunlight fills the garden. The flowerbed before him is overflowing with anemones, with velvety magenta morning glories tangled in here and there. About a thousand bees are whining and buzzing everywhere around them.

“Hey,” Madara says, as they come apart, taking off his sandals and handing them to Hashirama. “Could you hang these on the fence to dry?”

Hashirama looks at the strap of Madara’s left sandal, at the neat stitches along the sole where he must have run out of black thread and stitched it back on with blue, and suddenly feels like crying. 

* * *

“What was that dance you were doing?” Hashirama says once he’s taken a deep breath and come back.

“Oh,” Madara says, standing up from the bench. “It’s simple, really. I can teach you, if you’d like.”

Hashirama becomes aware that his heart is somewhere in his throat. “All right,” he says.

Madara reaches for him. “Just put your hands…” 

He guides Hashirama’s hands to his hips. Hashirama’s breath catches in his windpipe as they begin to sway gently together. Ever so carefully, he rests his thumbs on both sides of Madara’s pelvis, trying very, very hard not to think too hard about Madara in his blue robes yesterday, and wanting to touch every inch of Madara’s skin, and Madara panting as Hashirama kisses his neck— 

“You have to bend your knees more,” Madara says after a while. “You’re too stiff. You need to be loose.”

Hashirama has had enough. Dancing with Madara is agony. He seizes the broom from against the bench and wields it like a spear, grinning.

Madara makes a shocked sound in the back of his throat. “You—” 

“Loose enough for you?” Hashirama says, twirling it in his hands until it’s a dun-colored blur. He smacks one end into the still-wet patio. “Come at me, if you dare.”

Madara grabs a spare mop from its perch against the side of the fence. He’s grinning too. “Bastard.”

They circle each other, intense concentration mirrored on their faces, hardly daring to breathe. Madara darts forward, quick as a snake, and raps Hashirama sharply on the knuckles with the mop; he yelps and jumps back, twirling the broom in his hands in a wide arc that forces Madara to bend over backwards to avoid it. Then Madara aims a kick at his ribs as he moves; Hashirama drops into a crouch, jabs the broom forward, and bats at him with the bristled end. Madara heaves his mop aside like a javelin, then grabs the broom and twists. It snaps in half like a toothpick.

“Oh, damn,” Madara says, dropping his half of the broom. Wooden splinters fall all over the wet patio. They’re both breathing as if they’ve just run a marathon. Madara’s blue velvet robes cross his mind once more, and he quickly shakes himself of the thought. The clouds are burning off now, and the sun is rising higher and higher in the sky.

“Madara?” Hashirama says, cursing the way his voice cracks as he says the name. He sets his broom-half on the bench.

Madara turns to him. “What is it?”

“When we first decided to…” He glances around, lowers his voice significantly. “Pretend to be married,” he continues, “Why did you try to turn me down?” 

Madara looks taken aback. He opens his mouth, frowns, and closes it again. _ I’m yours, _ Hashirama thinks, the thought roaring in his head. _ I’m yours. Say the word and I’m yours. I’m yours… _

“I just…” Madara says. “This village—_ our _ village—I didn’t want its founding to be based on…” he says, trailing off. Hashirama stares at his dark eyes, at the red paint still smudged in the corner of his lips, and feels like last night’s fireworks are exploding in his chest.

“Well, a lie,” Madara says, finally.

“It’s not,” Hashirama wants to say, “it’s not a lie.” The truth is perched on his lips—he just needs to _ say _ it— 

Madara seems to be studying him very closely.

“You’re my best friend, Hashirama,” he says at last, in an odd, closed voice. “You are more important to me than you will ever know.”

A sudden volley of knocks on the kitchen window makes them both whirl around. Hashirama’s heart gives a massive, fearful leap—has someone been watching them the whole time?—but it’s just Tobirama, waving at them from inside the kitchen, grinning like a jackal. He raises Hashirama’s keyring into the air. “Hey!” he shouts through the window. “Lovebirds!”

Madara and Hashirama glance at each other warily. 

“What?” Hashirama shouts back.

Tobirama says nothing in response at first. He points towards the front door, then to the keys in his hand. “Enjoy your all-day picnic, assholes,” he finally shouts, and then sits back in his chair and pours himself a large, steaming cup of Hashirama’s finest coffee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hoooo god. beast chapter. hope you enjoyed it. that archery scene was actually the first part of the fic that i wrote, way back in june. i've been looking forward to posting this chapter for a LONG time.
> 
> steph did this absolutely gorgeous fanart for this chapter, check it out:  
https://10231224.tumblr.com/post/189847924122/a-tiny-part-of-wild-things-by-theadventuresof


	6. camellias

Tuesday morning. Cold. Madara stands at the river’s edge, scanning the sky. There’s no sign of Tsurugi; he’s aloft in a thermal right now, somewhere way out of his line of sight. He blows his whistle anyway, holds his gloved hand out in front of him, waiting for Tsurugi to return.

His euphoria from the festival has dwindled somewhat over these past few days, replaced with a sort of gnawing persistent dread. Izuna had intricately researched and documented what he called the “post-festival fatigue” back during the Uchiha clan’s bonfire days, although in hindsight, Madara is pretty sure that that was just Izuna’s way of saying he was too hungover to do any of his chores.

But Hashirama’s birthday is coming up, which means that he’s got little time to dwell on anything else. He’s completely at a loss. On Hashirama’s last birthday, Madara had given him a pre-dawn ambush that had culminated in over fifty casualties on both sides. The year before that, he had hallucinated with fever for three days straight and completely missed it. And the year before that, the clan had been stranded in Sora-ku with no food or water or outside contact. 

It’s about much more than giving Hashirama a decent birthday celebration. He knows he has no way of making up for the damage he’s already done. But he also knows that Hashirama wouldn’t want him to waste his thoughts on that. The river before him keeps flowing no matter what happens; it’s never the same river twice. _ We both did what we had to do, _ Hashirama would say. _ None of it is worth regretting. _

Hashirama’s just given him the entire festival. He just can’t think of anything _ good _ enough to give in return. Not for Hashirama. Not after everything that’s happened between them.

Tsurugi lights down on his gloved hand in a flash of gray and white feathers. He blinks about with his scarlet eyes, looking haughty.

Tobirama is at least civil these days when he bids the pair of them good night and they go off to bed together. They’re sleeping separately these days, with the door closed behind them. Madara supposes they never really needed to share the one bed the way they did. So why had they done it? Had he intruded that badly into Hashirama’s life then? Can Hashirama even bear to have Madara in his house anymore, after everything that’s happened? His face burns as he remembers curling up under the covers next to Hashirama night after night, and how fervently he had looked forward to those quiet moments, of sharing so intimate a space with the man he loves so much. Now Madara is determined to make himself as uncharacteristically scarce as possible whenever he’s there—Hashirama has his own life, no matter how intertwined it might seem, to someone looking in from the outside, with Madara’s own.

But he’s selfish, always selfish.

He wants to at least be friends with Hashirama again, if Hashirama won’t be with him. Any indication to the contrary was a drunken mistake; Hashirama had said so himself. And yet Madara finds himself gazing at Hashirama long into the night, hours after Hashirama has fallen asleep, and imagines slipping under the covers next to him, and running his fingers down Hashirama’s broad chest and cupping his face in his hands, the way real lovers do.

He’s haunted by the far-fetched thought that Hashirama might be looking at him the same way. He knows it’s not true, but Madara has always had a vivid imagination. The idea sustains him and eats away at him at the same time. 

Madara kicks a pebble into the river, hooks Tsurugi’s jesses to his belt. He’s not sure how much longer he can last. 

* * *

He runs into Hashirama himself at the corner of the coffee shop and the new florist barely half an hour later. The little Yamanaka girl in her too-large apron is presenting Hashirama with a tiny white flower, trembling with excitement as she presses it into his hands. Hashirama accepts it graciously, tucks the girl’s hair behind her ear for her as he departs. Madara watches him, practically spellbound, and knows he must look just as awestruck as everyone else around them in the street, staring at the Senju clan head with his mouth open slightly and his eyes glazed over. The streets are thick with the smell of coffee and fresh fish and newly-cut flowers, but it’s not bad. It smells like home.

Hashirama catches his eye, smiling brightly. Madara nods in acknowledgement, then feels a rush of embarrassment as he spots the Yamanaka matriarch ducking behind the counter inside the shop to retrieve a pair of scissors. She catches sight of him as she surfaces, and waves in his direction. Madara takes Hashirama’s arm as he waves back. She probably thought they were lying about their marriage to save face. Which they _ are, _ he supposes, but…not in the way she had thought. Mito must have had a word with her. 

They set off towards the Academy together, still arm in arm. Madara holds his head high as they walk, and tries not to think about how holding Hashirama’s hand has his chakra flaring out of control, has his heart hammering hopelessly against his ribcage.

* * *

Up on the cliff, Hashirama is spewing some nonsensical nomenclature as usual, this time about his proposed position title for the village leader.

“Once you’re the Hokage,” he says, spreading his arms wide, “I’m going to carve your face into the cliff for everyone to see. Then you’ll be able to watch over the village from afar.”

It takes a moment for these words to sink in. “You have got to be kidding me,” Madara says, blushing to the roots of his hair.

Hashirama laughs. “I mean it!” he says. He waggles his eyebrows. “Or are you getting cold feet now, of all times?”

Madara’s chakra flares without his permission. He _ is _ scared. Not enough to admit it to Hashirama, but as the wind picks up on the clifftop, another wave of scalding dread washes over him.

“Diplomatic work doesn’t really suit me,” he says, forcing his fear aside. “Give me heads to bust any day.”

“You know, both the Sarutobi and Shimura clans have reached out to me over the past week,” Hashirama says. “It seems they’re interested in joining the alliance as well. We may need to build farther upriver, at this rate.”

“Really?” Madara says, taken aback.

“So please refrain from busting their heads, is what I’m saying,” Hashirama says quickly. “If you can.”

Madara snorts. “I’ll do my best.”

“You…” Hashirama swallows. “You may not have blood siblings of your own, but I want you to think of the whole village as your family from now on. I want you to protect them with all your might.”

Something in Madara’s heart swells. He’s never understood how Hashirama can say the simplest things with such profound conviction. In that moment, he wants nothing more than to do exactly what Hashirama has just said. He wants to be a figure that the village can look up to. He wants to _ be _ that leader—to be trusted, admired, adored— 

Madara blinks. His eyes are stinging. He takes a breath.

“I realize what you’re trying to do, Hashirama, and I appreciate it, but—”

The wind scatters golden-green leaves in every direction. Madara’s hair flies in his face. “I just don’t think I’m suited for it,” he says.

“What?” Hashirama says. “Why not?”

Madara clenches his teeth. “People don’t…trust me.”

“I trust you,” Hashirama says.

“You do now,” Madara says. “I’ve seen it happen before. It can all change in an instant.”

“I trust you, Madara,” Hashirama says again. “There’s nothing you could say that could _ ever _ change my mind.”

Madara watches his face, searching for one hint of uncertainty—a fleeting crease in the center of his forehead, a spasm of fear at the corner of his mouth, a doubtful flickering in his eyes—but finds nothing.

“Are you sure?” he murmurs anyway. Hashirama nods. Madara wants nothing more than to believe him.

“Oh!” Hashirama says, snapping his fingers. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

Madara’s stomach gives a massive lurch. His breath seizes up in his throat. For half a second he’s convinced that Hashirama can actually hear his heartbeat from where he’s standing. He takes a long, steadying breath. Hashirama can’t have figured anything out. He’s been _ so _ careful not to reveal anything—

“The village needs a name,” Hashirama is saying. “Any ideas?”

“Oh,” Madara says, breathless. The wind sweeps over them again, sending leaves spiralling into the sky. And then he hears footsteps somewhere behind them, and turns around so fast he nearly gives himself whiplash. One of Tobirama’s shadow clones is emerging from the woods at the cliff’s edge, looking distinctly more frazzled than usual.

_ “There _ you are,” the clone says. “The Daimyō is here with his entourage. He says we have to decide on someone for this Hokage thing as soon as possible.”

Madara groans. 

“How soon?” Hashirama says, frowning.

Tobirama’s clone rolls its eyes. “According to him, preferably before he goes on holiday to the Land of the Moon at the end of the week, but you’d better talk to him in person about it,” he says. _ “Both _ of you,” he tacks on, as Madara attempts to slink away. “Shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes.”

Madara meets Hashirama’s eyes grimly. “Let’s just get this over with,” he says, and they depart.

* * *

Twenty minutes quickly becomes two hours.

“All right,” Hashirama is saying, “try this next one on.”

Madara pulls the garment out of the box. It’s a long scarlet cloak with a white sash draped over the shoulders. His eyebrows shoot up as he takes in the floral brocade down the sleeves, the twisting spirals along the collar. “Subtle,” he says. “Perfect for sitting at my desk and signing papers…” 

“It would be for formal occasions only,” the Daimyō says as Madara slides into the cloak. It pools around his ankles. “Clearly we’ll need to have it tailored, if you intend to take the position…”

Madara huffs. The silk is slippery against his bare shoulders. He’s thankful he wrapped his forearms earlier this morning, at least, before flying Tsurugi. The silk sensation is strangely unpleasant, like he’s wearing a sheet of water on his body. He glances wistfully at the chair beside him, upon which his mantle is folded.

Then he looks up. Hashirama is watching him intently, rapt with attention. Madara purses his lips, decides he might as well do the damn thing properly, and slowly turns around, showing off the cloak from every angle. It’s starting to slip off his shoulders. The sensation isn’t _ wholly _ unpleasant, he decides; the silk just takes some getting used to. In fact, it makes him feel quite powerful. He tosses his hair, catches Hashirama’s eye. Hashirama is still staring at him, unmoving. Madara lets himself imagine, for a moment, what he wants Hashirama to be thinking.

_ I couldn’t look away, _ Hashirama says in Madara’s brain. _ I just couldn’t take my eyes off you, Hokage-sama. _

Madara shivers. The name sounds a lot less silly when he imagines Hashirama saying it like that.

* * *

Complications arise the following night at dinner.

“This isn’t our fathers’ era anymore,” says Tobirama, setting the needle on the record player with clinical precision. “Nominate whoever you’d like, but we’ll be holding a vote to determine the final outcome.”

Madara catches himself nodding in agreement as he chops the onions. He stops nodding, a little disturbed.

“Of course,” Hashirama says, setting a large pumpkin down on the kitchen counter. “Madara, this is the last of them, but I can grow more if you need any. Whose turn is it?”

“Mine,” Tobirama says, picking up the dice.

“We do _ not _ need any more pumpkins,” Madara says as Tobirama rolls the dice. He slices the stem off and begins to carve out the guts. “Not unless you want to eat absolutely nothing else for the next fifty years.”

Hashirama laughs his booming laugh. “Sorry!” he says. “I was just so excited about our first harvest season together! Can you really blame me?”

“No,” Madara says, scraping a huge lump of seeds out of the pumpkin’s center. “No, I suppose this is par for the course.”

“That’s thirty points for me; I’ll hold,” Tobirama announces, setting the dice down on the table. “Madara?”

“Hashirama, roll for me,” Madara calls from his place at the stovetop. Hashirama rolls a 4 and a 1. Everyone groans. 

“Hikaku,” Hashirama says, slamming his forehead into the tabletop. “Your turn.”

Madara catches Naori’s eye. “You’re sure you don’t want to play?” he says, now adding pumpkin slices to the onion pan.

Naori smiles. “I only gamble when I’m sure I’ll win,” she says.

Hashirama frowns, still facedown at the table. “Doesn’t that take all the fun out of it?”

“Perhaps for some,” Naori says, smiling wider now. A volley of knocks at the door interrupts her. “Hikaku, could you get the door?”

Hikaku tosses the dice down as he stands up from the table. “4 and 5, I’m holding,” he says. He pulls the door open to reveal Mito and Tōka, hand in hand on the threshold, looking like they’ve just sprinted here from the Land of Rivers.

“Ah, at last,” Tobirama says. “So nice of you both to turn up.”

_ “Someone’s _got to eat all this pumpkin,” Tōka says. “Who’s winning? Wait—” Her eyes move from Madara, busy at the stove, to Tobirama, setting out bowls with an air of indefinable smugness, to Hashirama, who is still slumped at the table in despair with Naori looking on, bemused. “Let me guess.”

“It’ll cook down,” Madara says, stirring the pumpkin in the saucepan somewhat more vigorously as Mito and Tōka slide out of their shoes. “Someday.”

Mito crosses the kitchen and pulls him into a tight hug.

“Sorry we’re so late,” she whispers in his ear. “We, um, lost track of time at the house.”

Madara glances at the dark bruises partially concealed under Tōka’s scarf. “I don’t doubt it.”

* * *

“So in order of size, that’s Senju, Uchiha, Yamanaka, and six Uzumaki,” Hikaku says, arranging a handful of chestnuts into four neat piles on the tabletop. “But the Uchiha has a higher overall percentage of shinobi compared to the Senju—” 

“Not counting civilians unaffiliated with any of the clans,” Naori says. “Vendors and migrant families, that sort of thing.”

“Don’t forget, the Shimura and Sarutobi may be joining us before the year is out,” Hashirama says, bringing over a large tray of matsutake and setting it next to the pot. “That could put us well into the thousands.”

“We could potentially attract other clans to the village as well,” Tobirama says, with a pointed look at Madara, “depending on who gets elected Hokage.”

Madara gives him the finger, but his heart’s not really in it. He’s surprised, and a little disgusted, at just how much he’s agreeing with Tobirama this evening.

“We just need to think about it pragmatically,” Tobirama continues. “One wrong move, and we could disrupt the balance of power among the Five Great Nations even further. It could be catastrophic.”

The pot simmers innocently as these words sink in. The aroma of warm broth wafts towards them.

Tōka sighs. “Always the optimist,” she says.

“Well, _ someone _ has to be the realistic brother,” Tobirama mutters.

“We just have to avoid making any…sudden moves,” Hikaku says. “We don’t want to spook anyone too badly. I don’t fancy being done in by somebody from the Aburame, for instance.”

Madara shudders. He hadn’t even considered that possibility. He eyes an ant on the floor warily.

“But Madara and Hashirama are already _ married,” _ Tōka says, putting her chin in her hand. “It doesn’t get much more sudden than that, not after a thousand years of war.”

“I wouldn’t say that was entirely sudden,” Naori says, smiling slyly. 

Madara feels himself turning red. “What do you mean by that, exactly?” he says. Hashirama just laughs and puts his arm around Madara’s shoulders. The pot bubbles sluggishly in the silence that follows. 

“Let’s eat,” Hikaku says quickly.

* * *

“I cannot believe this,” Madara is saying the following morning. Rain rattles the office windows behind him. He runs his hands down his face, closes his eyes. When he opens them, the results are still sitting before him on the desk, plain as day. “I simply cannot fathom this.” 

UCHIHA MADARA — 309

SENJU HASHIRAMA — 308

“Is it that surprising?” Hashirama says, smiling.

“I wasn’t expecting such a close vote, at any rate,” Madara mutters, putting his head on the desk. “I just—I don’t _ believe _ this.” 

Hashirama laughs. “I’ll graciously accept my loss,” he says, sinking into a deep bow, “Especially given that you had my vote from the start.”

“You voted for _ me?” _ Madara says, blushing.

Hashirama nods. 

“Hashirama, you’re supposed to vote for _ yourself,” _ Madara says.

Hashirama sticks his lip out. “I told you, I wanted _ you _ to be the Hokage!” he says, as if this is the most obvious thing in the world. 

“And I told _ you, _ I don’t _ want _to be the Hokage,” Madara says, turning even redder. 

Hashirama laughs, if possible, harder. “Then why did you vote for yourself?”

Madara crosses his arms over his chest, as tightly as he can. “I…I seem to have grossly underestimated how many people would vote for me,” he says. “I guess those archery trick shots must have counted for something.”

* * *

No moon that night. It’s late. The sky out Hashirama’s bedroom window is full of stars. Madara watches from the bed, huddled under a pair of thick blankets. How far they’ve come from those quiet nights they spent curled up in bed together. Madara can feel Hashirama’s chakra barely an arm’s length from his own. Somehow, the distance still seems unnavigable. But, he realizes, somewhat belatedly, the lack of Hashirama’s usual deep breathing tells him that he’s not the only one lying awake right now.

“Madara?” says Hashirama’s voice, as soon as the thought crosses his mind.

Madara doesn’t move. “Hm?” he says. He can hear Hashirama rustling around on the mat somewhere below him.

“I’m cold,” Hashirama says, clutching his blankets to his chest.

Madara sits up. He lights a spark on his fingertips. Hashirama is shivering visibly. “Are you?”

“Can I...?”

Madara holds his breath, hardly daring to believe it.

“What, seriously?” he says.

“I—I mean—not if you’re uncomfortable with—” Hashirama stammers, flailing.

Madara sighs. “Just come here.”

Relief melts over Hashirama’s face. He shuffles over to the bed, drawing his blankets around him like a long cloak. Madara moves to the side, lifting the covers for him. The bedsprings groan as Hashirama climbs up next to him and squirms around on the mattress, trying to find a comfortable spot. Madara gasps. “Your feet are like ice,” he says. He rolls over and undoes his nemaki. “Put them here,” he says, gesturing to his bare back. Hashirama doesn’t move.

Madara turns around. Hashirama’s face is shining with worry. “Are you sure?” he says, in an uncharacteristically small voice.

“We’re letting the heat out,” Madara snaps. “Just hurry.”

Hashirama squirms some more as he lifts his feet up. “Thanks.”

Madara huffs. “I didn’t realize you got this cold,” he says. 

“Once I warm up, I’ll be warm for a long time,” says Hashirama, nestling further into the pillows like some sort of burrowing animal. “It’s getting there that’s the problem.”

Madara laughs. “You’re like a lizard,” he says. “Or—or some sort of human boulder.”

“I do like moss,” Hashirama says. He thinks for a moment. “And lichen.” He’s no longer shivering.

“Hang on,” Madara says. “Have you been this cold these past few nights but neglected to mention anything about it?”

“I didn’t want to bother you,” Hashirama says earnestly. “I figured you wouldn’t want me in bed with you after all those…_things _ I said that night.”

“Forget about that,” Madara says. “There’s no need for you to freeze to death down on the floor when there’s enough room up here for both of us.”

Hashirama sighs. His nose whistles. “I guess you’re right.”

Madara grins. “Remember the time we were going to try to climb those vines by the big cave, but I showed up half an hour late and made you keep watch while I took a nap?”

Hashirama chuckles. “I remember,” he says. “You looked dead on your feet.”

“I’d been awake for two and a half days,” Madara says, affronted. “Of course I looked dead on my feet.”

“I actually fell asleep too,” Hashirama admits. “Watching you put me right out.”

“And to think we could have been ambushed by enemy shinobi at any moment,” Madara says, laughing. “Some sentinel you were.”

“It turned out all right!” Hashirama bursts out, scooting closer to Madara on the mattress. “And you just looked so…” The word trails off into a long sigh, and then silence. Madara feels him breathing deeply in and out. “Peaceful.”

Hashirama feels like a furnace now. Madara isn’t sure what prompts him to say what he says next. Perhaps it’s because he feels safer than he’s felt in a long time, now.

“I can’t be the Hokage,” he says in a great rush, before he can change his mind. It’s easier to say it with Hashirama’s warm weight on his chest like this. He doesn’t have to look into his eyes. “I can’t—” He squeezes his eyes shut. “I can’t fail again.” 

He shudders. He remembers Tobirama’s words from the other night.

“What have we done, Hashirama?” Madara whispers. “This alliance—It’ll be nations fighting nations, next.”

For a long time, Hashirama doesn’t say anything. He just breathes in and out, in and out. Madara looks anywhere but the bed.

“Maybe,” Hashirama says. “Maybe not.”

Madara swallows. _ Maybe. _ The word sends a thrill of fear down his back.

“We have to believe we made the right choice,” Hashirama says, “no matter what comes of it.”

There’s a lump in Madara’s throat. “I should have listened to you back then,” he says, in a paper-thin whisper.

“What?”

“I should have accepted the alliance right then,” Madara says, “the first time.”

Hashirama’s slow, steady breathing falters slightly. “Oh,” he says.

Madara shudders. The Sharingan has seared it all into his memory—the desperation in Hashirama’s voice as he begged Madara to listen to reason, the sensation of Izuna’s slick bloody arm draped heavily around Madara’s shoulders, the way his brother’s body had trembled with the effort of saying _ No, Madara—don’t trust them— _

“Izuna needn’t have died,” Madara says. “And I’d—maybe then I’d feel like I could…deserve this.”

He gestures around them, at Hashirama’s comfortable wood-paneled bedroom, the warm bed they’re lying in, the artifacts on the shelf behind them, the spotted begonias on the windowsill, the two pairs of slippers lined up by the door.

“All of it,” Madara says. “You. The village. The clan…”

Hashirama is silent for a long time again.

“You know, I do know one thing about the future,” he murmurs, laying his head on Madara’s shoulder. “I won’t let you face it alone.”

“Damn it,” Madara says. His voice cracks. 

“Madara?” Hashirama whispers.

“Sometimes I almost think it’d be easier for me to be on my own,” Madara says, blinking the wetness from his eyes, “but then you come along and say some blasted thing that makes it impossible for me to even entertain the notion.” 

Hashirama blinks. Madara feels his eyelashes flutter against his skin. “Huh?” he says.

“I—Hashirama, I—”

_ I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you… _

He can’t say it. The silence presses in on them both. Madara’s lungs feel tight. The mantra pounds in his ears, harsh, unyielding, inescapable. 

“I want you to be the Hokage,” is what he settles on. 

“What?”

“I’m giving you my vote,” Madara says. “You win. You’re right. I don’t want to be alone. But I don’t want to be the Hokage, either.”

Hashirama smiles. Madara feels the muscles in his cheek contract as his lips move. “I accept,” he says, “on one condition.”

Madara’s heart leaps. He feels years younger, suddenly. “Anything.”

“Help me do it,” Hashirama says. “I don’t want to be alone either.” 

* * *

The news that Senju Hashirama has been elected as the village’s first Hokage, and that Uchiha Madara has been selected as his right hand man, travels through the village with remarkable speed. They’re bombarded with praise as they walk through the village together the next morning, and everyone wants to stop and talk, from perfect strangers to family.

“Congratulations, Hokage-sama, Madara-sama,” Tōka says to them, clutching her shopping to her chest. Mito grins, hooks her arm around Tōka’s. They’re wearing matching green earmuffs.

“Hashirama, now that you’re the Hokage,” Mito says, and then dissolves into giggles. “You’ve got to ask him,” she says to Tōka with difficulty.

“Right,” Tōka says. She clears her throat. “I presume the Hokage can perform a…wedding ceremony,” she says.

“Oh!” Hashirama says. “Well—I—I suppose I can.”

Mito beams. 

Hashirama smiles back. “Would you _ like _ to be married, by any chance?”

Tōka clasps Mito’s hands. They look at each other, then back to Hashirama expectantly. In unison, they nod.

“Well, then, by all means,” Hashirama says. “It would be my pleasure.”

At his words, Mito lifts Tōka clean off the ground and twirls her around in the air, laughing. “Finally!” she says. “I’ve been hoping for this since the alliance ceremony…”

Chuckling, Tōka dips her into a kiss. “I take it you accept my offer,” she says.

“Yes,” Mito says, planting kisses on every inch of Tōka’s face she can reach. “Yes, yes, yes—” 

Her enthusiasm sends Tōka’s earmuffs flying right off her head.

* * *

Hashirama’s birthday dawns cold and clear. Madara is up before sunrise, pacing back and forth across the bedroom. In the end, between the Hokage vote, the Daimyō, and everything else, he had barely given any thought to Hashirama’s birthday at all. 

It seems he’s the only one. Tobirama has gotten his brother a new set of ink brushes. Mito’s written him a wall scroll adorned with acorns; Tōka’s given him a pair of handsome snowshoes. And then there’s the growing pile of flowers and notes and cards and trinkets outside on the doorstep, from so many admirers. 

Madara is frustrated, but he’s proud. Proud because Hashirama deserves every bit of happiness bestowed on him; frustrated because there is no gift he can give, no gesture he can show, that could possibly convey the magnitude of his feelings for his friend. Which is a dangerous idea anyway, Madara reminds himself, because Hashirama, as kind as he is, does not and will not ever love him back.

“Come on,” Madara says to him, just after lunch. They walk along the riverbank for a while, the way they used to do so many years ago. Never the same river twice, Madara reminds himself. It’s not worth regretting these feelings of his. Their fingers brush together as they walk in comfortable silence. They’re so _ close. _ Somehow, though, the closer they get, the farther the distance between them feels.

At last they come to the bend in the river. Madara leads Hashirama up into the forest to a little golden-green glade, then sits down among the ferns and the moss.

“I didn’t know what to do,” he says gruffly. “I didn’t—I couldn’t think of anything good enough.”

Hashirama is looking around, surveying the glade carefully. He runs his hand over one of the broad ferns. “Is this the spot where—?”

“Where we found that baby bird, yeah,” Madara says. “And it looked like it had a broken wing—”

“—but you picked it up and gave it water from an eyedropper—”

“—and then you made a tiny splint from a pair of twigs, and it started moving around again—” 

“—and we checked on it the next day, and the mother bird was coming down and feeding it,” Hashirama finishes, smiling. “I remember.”

There’s a lump in Madara’s throat again. “Happy birthday, Hashirama,” he says with difficulty.

Hashirama beams at him. The patches of sunlight in the ferns around them shift slightly. The clouds moving by overhead seem to stand still. A pulse of warm chakra shudders through the glade, shaking the leaves in the understory around them. The air around them is changing, turning softer, gentler. Madara looks up at the sky, watches the towering clouds. Leaves are falling in his lap. He puts his hand on the ground, feels the soft damp moss between his fingers. 

The thought strikes him like a bolt of lightning. “I’ve got it,” he says suddenly. “I’ve thought of a name.”

Hashirama looks up at him with a frown. “What?”

“The village,” Madara says, “hidden in the leaves.”

Hashirama squints at him. Then he throws back his head and laughs so hard that before long, tears are streaming down his cheeks. “That’s the best name you could come up with?” he finally says, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. “It’s so… it’s so…” 

“Appropriate?” Madara suggests, twirling a leaf between his fingers. “Fitting?”

“Basic,” Hashirama says, counting off on his fingers, “plain, dull, lacking in any and all creativity…”

Madara purses his lips, stands his ground. He can’t tell if Hashirama is joking or not.

“It’s perfect,” Hashirama says abruptly. “The Village Hidden in the Leaves.”

Madara’s eyes widen. Great red camellias are bursting to life all around the pair of them—fifty, a hundred, two hundred blossoms spring from the ground as he watches, each flower easily the size of his hand. The light in their little glade turns rosy and warm. 

Camellias—passion—desire—_love— _

Madara’s heart practically thuds to a complete stop. Has Hashirama actually found him out this time? Has his chakra somehow subconsciously picked up on Madara’s emotions, and is now converting them into Mokuton manifestations? Why are there so _ many _ flowers? Hashirama can’t know—he cannot know—

Madara forces himself to calm down. He flexes his fingers, trying to coax away the tingling sensation that’s overcome them. If this _ is _ a subconscious reaction, Madara reasons, his heart still pounding somewhere in the region of his throat, then Hashirama might not even be aware that these are _ Madara’s _feelings to begin with. After all, he thinks, Hashirama isn’t a sensor; he doesn’t pick up on the intricacies of human emotion the way Madara does. Or, at least, not from their chakra. Hashirama has other talents.

“Madara?” Hashirama says. “What is it?”

Madara gives a start. “Nothing,” he says. So it had all been completely involuntary. He lets out a very long breath, shuddering slightly. “You…you’re making flowers.”

Hashirama looks around in surprise. “Ah!” he says. “So I am.” He picks one of the red blossoms and hands it to Madara. “For you,” he says, beaming. “May your naming skills only improve from now on.”

Madara takes it. He studies its crimson folds, its glossy dark leaves, the delicate yellow crown at its center. He’s still not used to seeing Hashirama’s mokuton used like this, not since the war. He lifts the camellia to his nose, closes his eyes. It’s got a mild smell, a sort of soft earthy sweetness.

If by some chance Hashirama isn’t aware of the camellia’s primary meaning, Madara reasons, then he _ certainly _ doesn’t know the secondary one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tsubaki meaning: "in love;" "perishing with grace".
> 
> i tried pumpkin in my hot pot for the first time last week. it was actually really good!!


	7. tobirama

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [lies on ground]

The day begins like any other. Tobirama slides into his house slippers. He shuffles down the hallway to the kitchen. He puts the coffee on. And he sits down at the kitchen table and braces for the inevitable.

It’s been happening like clockwork for over a month now. He can feel his brother’s chakra stirring as he begins to wake up—slowly, at first, like silt and sand stirred at the bottom of a deep cold ocean. And then he feels Madara’s chakra too, igniting in great piercing waves of crimson. But then something _happens,_ something that very much makes Tobirama want to move out of the house and never return. Madara’s chakra combines with Hashirama’s into a strange smouldering bouquet. It’s overwhelming. There’s frost on the ground outside, as there has been these last few mornings, but as Tobirama watches, it melts into a haze of low-hanging mist, and the rhododendron bush outside the kitchen window blooms and drops its petals in six or seven rapid pink cycles. Somewhere in the house he hears the shattering of glass, and knows it must be a mirror, or a window, _again—_and then the pair of intertwined chakras bursts into the sky, turns it into a canvas of contradictions and harmony. They’ve made a different colored sunrise each day for weeks now—pale and pink one day, then deep magenta the next, followed by a shimmering multitude of oranges and golds and yellows, and thin sparse clouds angled like giant ribs—he even caught sight of, Sage’s six paths, a _green_-tinted one several weeks ago. Today it’s all fiery red. This is just like when Hashirama had gone through puberty, but—worse. Now _Madara_ is here too. Hell, Hashirama’s gone and _married_ him.

He’s gained a lot of respect for his brother’s intelligence over the years—his skill and precision in healing, his persuasiveness, his unwavering kindness in the face of adversity, his inexplicably magnetic personality—but that doesn’t change the fact that Hashirama is still a bit of an idiot. And no matter how much Hashirama insists that he’s a grown man and that he can take care of himself, Tobirama is still his _brother,_ and he’s right _there. _Luckily, the three golden rules of Keeping Hashirama Out of Trouble haven’t changed for a long, long time. One—never fall for his patented sad face. Two—do not ever let him drink unsupervised. And, most importantly—keep him away from Uchiha Madara at all costs.

He’s almost lost his brother to Madara’s dangerous ideologic nonsense once already. Now he’s losing him again, just…slower. One wretched day at a time, as it were. He notices every comfortable touch between them, the way Madara’s eyes follow his brother wherever he goes, the way Hashirama gazes absently at Madara when he thinks no one is looking. These days his brother is permanently drenched in Madara’s foul chakra. It’s _everywhere_ now. The air is thick with it in the house. It’s permeated the village so thoroughly that often he finds himself sequestered up in the mountain safehouse just to be free from it for a few hours. But they’re in the thick of winter now, which means that Hashirama is enduring his annual bout of mokuton-induced stasis, for lack of a better term, and Tobirama needs to be with him.

“He’s just overextended himself, dear,” Madara is saying to Machiko later that morning, who is hovering uncertainly above Hashirama’s prone form on the futon, biting her lip.

“Are you sure?” she squeaks, her voice just a tiny bit shriller than Tobirama’s eardrums can handle. He winces, then chances a look back. His brother is heaped in blankets, unmoving, in the same place he’s been since breakfast. Tobirama tries very hard not to focus on how Madara’s hands linger for a second too long on his brother’s chest as he checks his breathing.

“He probably just…” Madara says. “Whatever he was doing yesterday, he probably just overdid it.” He glances in Tobirama’s direction, his face lined with worry. “Right?”

Tobirama nods curtly. “He’s always been like this,” he says. “The transition from fall to winter tends to take a toll on him. He’ll be fine.”

“Mito should be back this afternoon, besides,” Madara says. He glances in Tobirama’s direction. “And Tōka—”

“Not until evening,” Tobirama says. “She sent a letter ahead. She’s stopping in the Land of Rivers first.”

“You’ll be home before you know it, Machiko,” Madara says, replacing her at the table. She immediately starts crying into her okayu. Tobirama blinks at this unexpected reaction.

“I’m going to miss you, Madara-sama!” she says, tears dripping down her face.

Madara ruffles her hair. He smiles. “I’ll miss you too, child,” he says. Tobirama frowns. Someone—one of the Uchiha, by the smoky flavor of the chakra—is approaching the house quite rapidly. He opens his mouth to mention this, but before he can speak, there’s a frantic volley of knocks on the front door. Madara stands up from the table and throws it open, revealing a very bemused Hikaku. “Urgent summons from the Daimyō,” he says, panting. “I was asked to tell you—He’s requested for the Hokage to meet him at the Fire Temple as soon as possible.” His eyes fall upon Hashirama, lying uselessly on the futon. “Ah.”

“I’ll go,” Madara says quickly. “He probably wants Hashirama to try on some more godforsaken Hokage outfits.”

Tobirama stands up from the table. “Like hell you’ll go,” he says. “We want a continued partnership with the Land of Fire, remember.”

“Just _what_ is that supposed to mean?” Madara cries out. “Your brother has no problem trusting me, you know—”

“Wouldn’t be his first major lapse in judgment,” Tobirama says with venom.

Hashirama stirs. “Behave,” he mumbles sleepily from the futon.

Madara clears his throat. “I’m going to the Fire Temple,” he says. He meets Tobirama’s eyes. _“Don’t_ follow me.”

* * *

The temptation to follow Madara, it turns out, is simply too great. Tobirama leaps over a little brook, running his fingers over the little abalone shell he keeps in his pocket. It’s still morning, but gray clouds are building overhead. Just ahead of him, Madara jumps up onto a boulder, holding one gloved hand up over his brow to shield his eyes from the overabundance of gray light. Then Madara’s shadow clone comes up behind him and puts a dagger to his throat.

“I told you not to follow me,” Madara’s original body calls over his shoulder. “How’d you like to be dismembered?”

Tobirama scoffs, a little nettled at being ambushed so easily. “As if you could ever,” he says, sliding a dagger of his own out of his sleeve and sticking it into the clone’s chest. It evaporates in a flash of smoke. “I told you, I’m just here to make sure things go smoothly at the Temple. Can’t have you dismembering the Daimyō, you know.”

They don’t make much conversation until the temple roof starts to emerge over the hilltops before them. The two massive statues at the doorway tower over them as they ascend the steps, looming like a pair of giants.

“Odd place to meet,” Tobirama remarks, running his hand along one of the twin columns by the door.

“He’s probably visiting all the main spots in the Land of Fire to check in on operations,” Madara says. “Of course he’d drag us out of our way to meet him. Be thankful he didn’t make us come to the hot springs.”

Tobirama shudders at the image. And then, as he steps through the temple door with Madara beside him, something _changes._ It’s as if the air around them shudders visibly. His ears suddenly feel like they’re massively waterlogged—uncomfortable, but bearable—and more worryingly, all of his sensory abilities have completely, abruptly shut off. The deafening buzz of crushing silence sends a pulse of worry through him. He can tell Madara’s felt it too, by the way he flinches as he steps into the main hallway.

“I can’t infuse chakra,” Madara murmurs to him.

“I _know,”_ Tobirama hisses back. “Neither can I. Something might be awry with the sealing formula on the gate.”

“Or worse,” Madara says. “What exactly did the Daimyō say in his summons?”

Tobirama opens his mouth to say that he hadn’t had time to read the message because Madara had taken off so abruptly, but before he can do that, the Daimyō himself emerges from the nearest hallway, minus his usual samurai bodyguards. He looks distinctly ruffled. “Where is Hashirama?” he says without preamble as he approaches. He peers behind the pair of them, as if Hashirama might be hiding in the back somewhere. “I was told he’d be here today—I have several matters I must discuss with him, immediately.”

Tobirama thinks back to his brother’s exhausted face. “He’s—”

Madara gives him a pointed look.

“—Otherwise preoccupied,” Tobirama says. “We’ve come in his stead.”

“Ah,” the Daimyō says. “Well. That is unfortunate indeed. I suppose there’s no need for me to keep _this_ on, then.”

He releases the henge. The stranger standing before them is _not_ the Daimyō. He’s short and stocky, built like a warrior, with graying hair and powerful shoulders. He bears no clan markings whatsoever. Tobirama leaps back—from the dark blur beside him he sees that Madara has done the same.

“Who are you?” Madara says.

“I could ask you the same thing,” says the stranger. Madara looks slightly offended. “Where’s Hashirama?”

“The Hokage is a busy man,” Tobirama cuts in. “He can’t personally see to every matter presented to him. Were you planning to ambush him with this false summons? Foolish.”

“Now, now,” says the man. “I don’t know who you two are, but if either of you mean _anything_ to Hashirama, perhaps we’ll have gained some leverage after all, and this day won’t have been a total waste…”

Now another man walks into the room, holding a pair monks at knifepoint before him. He’s much taller than the first, with dark, severe eyes.

“Karasu!” says the shorter man to this newcomer. “Next time _you’re _playing the Daimyō. See how you like wearing the damn hat.”

“Shape up, will you?” Karasu says. “We have a situation on our hands. You two—come with me.” He flashes a charcoal-black tantō in their direction. “Yamaneko, search them.”

The shorter graying man steps forward, grinning. “We might as well have a laugh,” he says. “It’s not like we’ll have time later. You, pale giant—turn around.”

“I assume he means you,” Madara mutters. Tobirama sighs a very long sigh and does as he says.

It turns out Yamaneko is able to sniff out every concealed weapon the pair of them have on them—not an easy feat, given that between them they have a good twenty or so implements, including a pair of senbon concealed in Tobirama’s shin wrappings and a shuriken wedged carefully beneath Madara’s left sandal. Once Yamaneko is satisfied, he leads them through a short passageway—Tobirama has to duck to make it—and into the main hall of the temple. All that’s left of Tobirama’s effects is the tiny abalone shell in his pocket. He runs his fingers over its smooth contours as they walk.

“Folks, settle down, settle down,” says the shorter man as they enter. About thirty monks are already huddled inside, all sporting varied looks of alarm. “Please, try to remain calm. Today isn’t going terribly well for us, either.”

“Shut up,” says his partner. “You two—get back with the rest.”

“If we make a move on them now, we should be able to get some leverage of our own,” Madara says under his breath as they retreat back towards the other monks.

Tobirama shakes his head. “Look around you for a second,” he mutters, still running his fingers along the shell in his pocket. “We’re surrounded by hostages. Make a move now, and someone will get hurt.”

“Wrong place, wrong time, eh, you two?” says one of the older monks, chuckling.

“Don’t I know it,” Madara mutters, leaning back against the wall.

“Tsutsui!” says the young monk next to him, who looks shaken. “This is no time for joking around!”

“If I can just teleport a clone out of here, I can get Anija,” Tobirama says, trying to ignore the very bemused looks that the monks are now giving them.

“Don’t drag him into this,” Madara says. “We can handle it. Don’t bother him. He needs to sleep.”

“This is some kind of tetragram seal,” Tobirama says, running his hand along the back wall, and then quickly drawing his fingers away when it administers a mild shock. “We’ll need at least four people to break it and get everyone out.”

Madara makes a worried noise in the back of his throat. “Ah. So, then…”

Tobirama nods. “You, me, Anija, and Mito. But it’s no good if we’re _all_ inside the barrier.”

Madara groans. “You think Mito is even back yet?”

“I have no idea,” Tobirama says. “This isn’t good.”

“Funny,” Madara says, “I was thinking the same thing.”

“I think…” Tobirama closes his eyes in concentration. “I might be able to bypass the sealing formula…but it’ll take a while for me to build up the chakra for a clone—”

“We have to get these people out of here _now,”_ Madara hisses. “If I can get to the jutsu-caster…”

“Just be patient,” Tobirama murmurs, his eyes still closed. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

Madara doesn’t respond. Tobirama opens his eyes. He’s vanished.

Tobirama bites back a curse and leaps to his feet. Madara is already at the front of the room, charging at the pair of rogue ninja; thirty monks and Tobirama watch in awe and trepidation as he delivers a powerful kick to Karasu’s chest; he staggers back towards the wall, winded, while Yamaneko charges at Madara from the opposite direction. Madara folds his body practically in half, knocks the tantō out of Karasu’s hands and catches it. He holds it to Yamaneko’s throat while neatly pinning Karasu to the floor with one foot. “Don’t move,” he says triumphantly, “either of you. It’s like my piece of shit father always said: If you’re fool enough to lose your weapon, don’t be surprised when someone else picks it up.”

Karasu’s clone dissolves into sand. Then the real thing impales Madara through the shoulder with the tantō. He falls with a gasp.

The monks draw back in horror. Tobirama runs to Madara at once.

“What do you think _you’re_ doing?” Karasu says, brandishing the bloody tantō in Tobirama’s direction. “Get back with the others.”

“I’m a doctor,” Tobirama says quickly, kneeling at Madara’s side. “Told you someone would get hurt,” he mutters in Madara’s ear, hastily drawing back as Madara goes to spit on him.

“If you had just backed me up, we could have managed it,” Madara mutters, his hair clinging to his sweat-drenched face in long black strands.

Tobirama chooses to ignore this. He balls up his haori and folds it into the crook of Madara’s elbow. “You—come here, ” he barks instead at the young monk nearest to the door. The boy scampers over at once.

“Take this,” Tobirama says, offering him Madara’s arm. “Apply constant steady pressure to the wound. I'm going to need a few things, so please try to cooperate. Does _anyone_ have any more information about those two?”

No one responds.

“Well—we’ll just have to work with what we have,” Tobirama continues in a low voice, fumbling for his hip pouch. “They were powerful enough to erect the barrier and perform this sealing formula on the inside space. Everyone within the barrier has lost their ninjutsu, but clearly they’re completely unaffected—”

“You’re welcome, by the way,” Madara says, “for figuring that one out.”

Madara’s arm slips out of the monk’s grasp. “You guys are shinobi?” he says.

“I said constant pressure!” Tobirama snaps.

The young monk jumps. “R—right,” he says, redoubling his efforts.

“Your brother could have healed this in an instant,” Madara groans, sweat still pouring down his face.

“Be grateful at least one of us is here,” Tobirama mutters. He peels back Madara’s blood-soaked sleeve, grimacing. “This doesn’t look good. I’m going to have to—”

“Stitch it?” Madara says, squeezing his eyes shut.

Tobirama nods, now poking around in the wound. “He got you on an angle. If we leave it as is, you’ll bleed out within the hour.” Thinking vaguely of what Hashirama would say if Tobirama let his husband die on his watch, he removes from his hip pouch a needle, a spool, a long roll of gauze, and a pair of tiny thread scissors. He looks around the room. “Has anyone got any alcohol?”

“We’re in a _monastery,”_ Madara begins, but almost immediately the old monk from earlier hurries forward with an amber bottle in his hands. He presents it to Tobirama, grinning.

Tobirama smirks. “Madara,” he says. “You know that green chair?”

Madara opens one eye. “What?” he says, nonplussed.

“The one you bastards ruined when you moved all my furniture out into the garden,” Tobirama elaborates, uncorking the bottle with his teeth. “It was my favorite.” He tips the bottle out onto Madara’s arm, only slightly relishing the yelp of pain that follows. Then he threads his needle and gets to work.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Madara is no longer in any immediate danger of dying, and Tobirama has made a mental note to replenish his gauze supply if they ever get out of here alive.

“They’re in over their heads now,” Tobirama says, glancing towards the doorway where Karasu and Yamaneko are still standing guard.

Madara scoffs. “And we’re not?” he says.

Tobirama ignores him. “Hashirama didn’t show up, but they have to go through with their plan anyway. We can use this to our advantage, but we’ll need to be careful,” he says, still making careful stitches along Madara’s shoulder. “They may become defensive and unpredictable.”

Madara gives a laugh that’s nearly a shriek. “Unpredictable!” he says. “We’re caught in the middle of a botched hostile takeover miles from civilization and the term _unpredictable_ is just now occurring to you?”

“Think about it rationally,” Tobirama says, now looping the thread around into a tidy knot. “We already have a good indicator of what they’re willing to do to hostages from what they did to you. This wound isn’t fatal. They mean to incapacitate us for now. That means we’ve still got time to act.”

“And I’m _telling_ you, if you had just backed me up—”

“First things first,” Tobirama says, cutting him off as he begins wrapping the wound in gauze. “If we can figure out a motive, we can figure out what they intend to do next.”

“Right,” Madara says. “Well—” He lowers his voice considerably. “The Fire Temple has a powerful sealing formula built into it already. It’s difficult to infiltrate, but with the right manpower, it’s not impossible, obviously…plus there’s the temple’s location to consider, perfectly situated between the mountains…it’s the perfect place for an operation like this one. They’ll use the temple as a base, and once the monks are subdued, they’ll attack Konoha.”

Tobirama frowns as he tightens the knot in the gauze. “And you’ve figured this how?”

“Because it’s something I would have done,” Madara says grimly.

Tobirama raises one eyebrow. He can’t argue with that logic.

“We may already be looking at an assassination,” Madara continues. “They clearly were counting on Hashirama showing up here in order to dispatch him, but there’s no reason they wouldn’t have been able to subdue the Daimyō on their own…”

“Let me think about this,” Tobirama says. “I marked the short one earlier when they were confiscating our weapons—his chakra is partially fragmented. That means—”

“He must have a clone somewhere nearby,” Madara says.

“Exactly,” Tobirama says, “which means that if I can locate the clone, I can use its chakra to bypass the sealing formula on the temple. That can be our opening.” He reaches into the depths of his mind and attempts to dredge up the smallest scrap of sensory chakra. “I’ve just…” a sharp pain flares up between his temples—“got to figure out…where he is.”

The next two minutes of searching feels like at least twenty. It’s as if he’s looking through a pair of pinhole glasses with a drastically wrong prescription; his head is throbbing and he can feel something vaguely wet and hot running down his chin. And then—

“Found him,” Tobirama mutters, blood dripping from his nose. “I’ll go, obviously.”

Madara nods. “Right.”

“You keep an eye on things here,” Tobirama says. “Make sure nobody else gets hurt.”

Madara scoffs. “Obviously.”

“But if I teleport us back inside, then Anija will be stuck in the same damn mess that we are,” Tobirama says. “And I can’t break through to the outside on my own…”

“Make two clones,” Madara offers, now flexing his bloody fingers experimentally.

“I don’t have enough time—they’ll be too weak,” Tobirama says. “Better off with just the one. Can you keep them distracted while we close the distance?”

“Of course,” Madara says.

Tobirama nods. “Good. I’ll come back with Anija as soon as I can. Do you trust me?”

Madara grits his teeth. “Yes.”

“Collapse in that doorway,” Tobirama says, making the appropriate handsigns, “and sell it.”

Madara is already on the ground. The monks rush over—Karasu and Yamaneko are joining them too—“What’s going on?” Yamaneko says. “What’s happened?”

“He may be going into shock,” Tobirama says, as his clone vanishes. “Everyone, back up. I need to attend to this man’s wounds.”

“One time was enough,” Karasu says. “Step away, _now.”_

“Listen to me,” Tobirama murmurs, grabbing Karasu by the collar. “Look around. You have thirty hostages in an unstable psychological state. If they think they’re going to die, they _will_ panic, and they _will_ fight back. I _know_ that’s the last thing you want. Now step back and let me save this man’s life.”

He shoves Karasu back towards the wall, and kneels by Madara’s side once more.

* * *

Tobirama’s shadow clone lands in the parlor back at the house, gasping for breath. He’s still dizzy from attempting to infuse so much chakra at once. Mito looks up from Madara’s leftover curry in mild shock.

“Tobirama?” she says. “You’re back early, what’s going on—?”

“Mito, Anija,” he says breathlessly. “Situation.”

Hashirama stands up from the futon at once, swaying slightly on his feet. “What is it?”

“Fire Temple,” Tobirama says. “Ambush. No ninjutsu—no anything. Madara’s hurt, but it’s not bad—my original body is still inside. We can stall them for a bit longer, but we’ve got to hurry—and we think the Daimyō may already be dead.”

“I’ll check on the Daimyō,” Mito says quickly. “You two get to the temple as quickly as you can. It sounds like there isn’t much time.”

“Wait!” Hashirama says. “We’ll need your fuinjutsu skills—”

“You two should be able to break the seal just by applying enough external force,” Mito says, waving one hand. “Hashirama, you could do it easily. It’s just like breaking a genjutsu. But don’t you _dare _break the whole temple, Hashirama! Do you hear me?” she cries, slamming the door behind her.

Hashirama sighs. He places his hand on the clone’s shoulder, and they depart.

* * *

“So, you’re working on some sort of escape plan with your friend?” says the young monk who had helped patch up Madara’s arm.

“He is _not_ my friend,” Tobirama says, still pretending to check Madara’s pulse, “but he might be able to help us, as soon as the cavalry arrives.”

Just then the air around them gives a dangerous wobble. Tobirama holds out one arm to steady Madara and the young monk—just in time, because the next second the sealing formula around the temple completely shatters, along with the enormous wooden doors. Splinters of wood and glowing chakra fly like snowflakes, and smoke billows from the floor at the impact. Hashirama stands silhouetted in the smoke; they get a split second glimpse of Tobirama’s clone before it evaporates from the impact. Tobirama feels it dispel with a sharp tug.

And then Madara is casting his Susanoo around the monks like an enormous glowing umbrella, shielding them from the shrapnel—Hashirama strides forward, his chakra boiling, hair rolling off his back in long dark waves, his face as close to livid as Tobirama has ever seen it. The floor caves underneath his feet, and long webbed cracks like lightning bolts are snaking their way along the walls as he comes closer.

“Stay behind me!” Madara shouts, throwing one arm out. The Susanoo’s arm mirrors his own. Yamaneko is sprawled flat on the ground, knocked out by one of the massive ceiling beams. Tobirama lunges at Karasu, pins him to the wall by the throat.

“Tell me what’s going on,” he says. “Why are you here? What were you hoping to accomplish? What have you _done?_”

Karasu chokes. Tobirama loosens his hold slightly. He takes in a massive shuddering mouthful of air.

“How naive of you,” Karasu says, beginning to laugh through a large mouthful of blood. “Assassinate the Daimyō. Assassinate the Hokage. That was our mission. Please—do you think I care about any of that?”

“Not—personal,” Yamaneko chokes out in affirmation, still unmoving. Tobirama jumps; he had almost forgotten he was there. “Just—needed a job.”

“Fine,” Tobirama says. “Who sent you? Why take on the Land of Fire in the first place?”

“Haven’t you heard?” Karasu gurgles. “Insurgence is a business now. Revolution is a commodity. You just happened to be the unlucky folks on the receiving end this time around. Not that we’ll be getting paid, after this mess,” he adds on bitterly.

Tobirama gives him a shake. _“Who are you working for?”_

Karasu laughs. “I might as well tell you,” he says. “My mission has failed, anyway. Yamaneko and I will be hunted down next, I’m sure. We were only a preliminary experiment to gauge the Land of Fire’s power, really.”

Tobirama grits his teeth. _“Why?”_

“It’s simple, really,” Karasu says. “Shinobi need money. Daimyōs need soldiers. You can do the math.”

Tobirama and Hashirama share a very alarmed look.

“We were hired,” Karasu continues, “by the Daimyō of the Land of Wind. He oversees a temple of his own in the village there—seems they’ve taken inspiration from you lot here—and,” he glances very briefly at Yamaneko, who nods— “they have a tailed beast at their disposal.”

Tobirama gives a very long exhale. “Shukaku,” he says.

“Ah, you know it!” Karasu says. “Yes—I believe they had planned to store the beast here until the opportune moment, then use it to take over the Land of Fire by force. Did you know, only two temples in all of the five great nations have enough sealing capacity to hold a tailed beast currently? Otherwise we’d have had to resort to—” he shudders. “More primitive storage methods.”

The silence that follows feels heavier than usual.

“Like it or not, we shinobi were built to be pitted against each other,” Karasu says, finally. “We bear you no ill will, not anymore. But we won’t be the last people they send.”

And before Tobirama can interrogate the pair of any further, they vanish in two puffs of violet smoke.

* * *

“Right,” Madara says to Tobirama twenty minutes later, taking a long drag off his pipe. “Where were we, before we were so _rudely_ interrupted this morning?”

“Threats of disembowelment, I believe,” Tobirama says. He crosses his arms over his chest, lets his eyes slide closed. He can hear Madara’s gentle breathing next to him. Behind him, Hashirama is healing a long line of monks, although luckily, most of the wounds so far have been fairly superficial—most. “Is your arm all right?”

Madara scoffs. “Of course it is. Hashirama healed it in about a second.”

Tobirama glances over at him. “Take care of him, will you?”

Madara look at him in surprise. “Why, are you going somewhere?”

Tobirama forces a laugh. “Not if I can help it,” he says. “But I’d prefer to leave my brother in good hands, if worst comes to worst. And things may well be headed in that direction, now.”

Madara doesn’t answer, and instead inspects his pipe very carefully.

“I’m sorry it had to come to this for me to see it, but…” Tobirama sighs. “You’re a good man, Madara.”

Madara blinks. He still doesn’t respond.

“I won’t pretend I’m not still terrified of you—”

“You wouldn’t be the first,” Madara mutters.

_“But,” _Tobirama presses on, “I just want you to know I—I approve. Of you two.”

He pulls the smooth abalone shell out of his hip pouch and presses it into Madara’s hand. “I hereby give you my blessing.”

Madara stares at it. His pipe has gone out, but he hasn’t noticed. “This is your blessing?”

“It’s a metaphor, idiot,” Tobirama says, but he’s smiling very faintly.

“You and your damn metaphors,” Madara says. “Look, don’t get any grand ideas about the two of us. I just thought…Hashirama wouldn’t appreciate it very much if I let his brother die on my watch.”

Tobirama nearly laughs. They really are more alike than he had thought. “Madara,” he says instead, “I’m—I’m sorry about Izuna.”

“Don’t,” Madara says sharply, setting his pipe down on the steps with a clatter. Sparks jump from the wood. “Don’t ever say his name in front of me.”

And he stands up and goes to help Hashirama with the wounded.

* * *

The Fire Daimyō is indeed dead, Mito reports that evening, along with his entire entourage. The Suna assassins hadn’t even spared his poker companions. By the time they all make it back to the house, stars are coming out. Hashirama sits down hard on the futon, looking sad and sallow and pale, like a plant deprived of sunlight for too long. Mito gathers Machiko in her lap and sits down next to him with a long sigh. Madara is pacing in the kitchen. Tobirama watches him intently, his arms crossed over his chest.

“One of us needs to go to Suna,” Tobirama says. “Shinobi there need more foundational support. That was the whole point of the village in the first place. We can prevent this from happening again.”

Mito frowns. “An expansion of the alliance, you mean?”

Tobirama nods. “Exactly,” he says. “If we play our cards right, we could extend our reach even beyond Suna.”

“We can offer them arable land,” Hashirama says slowly. “We have plenty.”

“It’s too early to offer anything,” Tobirama cuts in. “We need to assess the situation fully first. We don’t even know if they’ll be open to negotiations.”

“Someone should still go,” Hashirama says. “Show them that _we’re_ willing to negotiate, at least.”

Mito looks around the room at them all. “So—who?”

“I’ll go,” Madara says, after a pause. He glances from Hashirama to Tobirama. “You two need to stay in the village. And Mito, I can’t ask you to leave, not when you’re about to get married.”

Mito looks up at him, worry on her face. “Are you sure?” she says. “We—we could always postpone—”

Madara smiles. “I’ll owe you a dance,” he says. “Hold me to it. I…I had better go pack my things.”

“Madara!” Hashirama says, practically leaping off the futon. “Wait—are you really—you can’t just _leave, _I—”

“Hashirama,” Madara says, very seriously. He clasps Hashirama’s hands in his own, his lips parted slightly. Tobirama watches the pair of them, feeling that he should really look away. His brother’s relationship with Madara has always been something of a mystery to him, ever since the beginning.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Madara murmurs, “while I’m gone.” And he leans forward and kisses Hashirama’s forehead before drawing back and disappearing down the hallway towards his and Hashirama’s bedroom.

“Does this mean he’s gonna miss the wedding?” Machiko says in a very small voice as he departs.

Out of everything that’s happened today, this moment feels by _far_ the most real, Tobirama thinks, suddenly feeling very tired and insignificant. Life goes on. Life always goes on.

* * *

He’s sitting in the lab past midnight that night, unable to concentrate on his work, just absently turning his quill over and over in his fingers. Things are precarious right now. They’re going to have to be very careful. Hashirama’s chakra wavers in the hallway behind him. He can hear his footsteps on the wood floor, and then a long creak as he pauses, just out of sight. Then his brother emerges from the darkness into the doorway. He’s barefoot, dressed in his bed things, holding a lit candle in one hand. But the most striking thing about him is how _timid_ he looks, how tentative and lost and confused he appears in the bobbing candlelight.

“Anija,” Tobirama says. “What’re you still doing up?”

Hashirama just shakes his head. He doesn’t move.

“Tea?” Tobirama says. Hashirama nods, still looking downcast and diminished. Tobirama beckons him into the room, tightening his nemaki with a frown. He puts the kettle on and retrieves a pair of cups from the cabinet to the left of the door. Hashirama pulls up a chair and sits down at the desk. He’s folded in on himself, his chakra quivering faintly.

“What’s going on, Anija?”

Hashirama doesn’t answer right away. He stares into his teacup, his eyes shining with tears.

“I miss Madara,” he says at last, in a very small voice. “I wish he didn’t have to go.”

Tobirama sighs. He had figured it would be something like this. Hashirama takes a shaky breath and continues.

“Everything that’s happened, I’m scared—I don’t want to do this alone, I can’t do it alone—”

“Anija, you won’t be alone,” Tobirama says at once, his heart sinking as he speaks. He knows that Madara and his brother have a completely different bond, one that Tobirama will never be able to replace. He remembers the look on his brother’s face upon seeing Madara bloody and battered at the temple earlier today; remembers giving Hashirama a look of his own, something like _go ahead, it’s all right, I’m fine, attend to Madara;_ remembers the urgency in Hashirama’s voice as he shouted Madara’s name and he ran to him—and he knows that Madara means more to his brother than he can possibly put into words. “I’ll take care of you,” he says anyway, and means it.

“I know,” Hashirama says, with a watery smile. “And I’ll take care of you too. But I just keep thinking—who _knows_ how long he’ll be gone—and I can’t—I can’t—”

Tobirama watches him, pursing his lips. His brother’s hands are shaking on the teacup.

“I can see why you care for him so,” Tobirama says slowly.

Hashirama stifles a little sob.

“You know, I never thought this would happen, but I’m actually coming to terms with you and Madara being married,” Tobirama says, blowing on his tea.

Hashirama fidgets in his chair. He chews on his lip for a moment. “I need to tell you something,” he says, and then his face crumples.

Tobirama groans inwardly. Hashirama is sobbing on the desk with his head in his arms, his long hair spilling everywhere. “All right,” he says. “Come on, Anija. Just—” He moves his papers out of the way of Hashirama’s snot trails, wincing. He tentatively places one hand on Hashirama’s back in an attempt to soothe him. It doesn’t do much.

“We’re _not!”_ Hashirama wails, his sobs redoubling.

Tobirama takes his hand off him. “You’re not what?” he says, rather dreading the answer.

It takes his brother several seconds to regain the ability to speak through his tears. He rubs his hands over his face, shuddering, then takes a deep gasp of a breath and tries again.

“We’re not really married,” Hashirama sobs. “We made it all up.”

The words don’t sink in right away. Then an immense wave of nearly palpable relief washes over him. He slides backwards in his chair, sighing. “I can’t imagine what would _possibly _prompt you to do that,” he says, “but may I just say—thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“I never imagined—” Hashirama says, still trembling. “People kept assuming—and so we decided to just—I never meant for it to go this far—”

“Just take a breath, Anija,” Tobirama says. “Consider the situation. You’re not locked into this forever; you can always tell him that you don’t want—”

“Tobirama,” Hashiarama says, taking hold of Tobirama’s shoulders. Tears are still pouring freely down his cheeks. His lower lip trembles furiously. “I…”

Tobirama glowers. _“What,_ Anija?”

“I—I don’t know what to do,” Hashirama whispers, curling in on himself in the chair. “I’m in love with him. I love him so much.”

Tobirama’s relief evaporates. All the blood drains from his face.

“Anija,” he says, after several tense seconds. Then realizes he’s at a complete loss for words. _What the fuck?_ and _Are you serious?_ seem to keep cropping up in his brain, but there’s no point in saying it—no point, he realizes, because he _knows,_ deep down, with some resignation and at least a small twinge of horror, that it’s all true. It all lines up. The soft touches, Hashirama’s hands on Madara’s shoulder, the gazes of admiration, of adoration and appreciation and…and _longing,_ he thinks—and more than that, the way they’ve been doing this wretched dance together for years now, always on a completely different level from everyone around them—it just makes _sense._

* * *

It’s nearing sunrise once Tobirama is fully caught up on the situation, and Hashirama is securely planted back in his bed upstairs. “I was just starting to get used to the idea of it, too,” Tobirama says as he draws the curtains. There’s no moon tonight, and the sky is full of stars.

Hashirama stirs. “Huh?”

“You two,” Tobirama elaborates. “Together. You both certainly fooled me.”

“Tobirama,” Hashirama says, in a very thin voice. “Do you…do you think he…?”

Tobirama takes a deep breath. He doesn’t know what to say. Honestly, he has no idea. He’s not sure which one he’d rather think: that Madara actually loves his brother back, or that he’s just been going along with Hashirama’s ill-fated made-up marriage for some yet unknown, deeply sinister purpose. What he _does_ know, though, is that for two people who claim not to be married, Madara’s chakra interacts with his brother’s in some very, _very_ interesting ways. He goes to inform Hashirama of this, but the absence of telltale sniffles in the bed beside him tells him that his brother is already fast asleep once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK i meant to add more notes last night but i passed out immediately after submitting this bad boy.  
1\. spot the burn notice references (lenny face)  
2\. lowkey shoves my ocs into this chapter  
3\. i am so sorry i meant to post this like a WEEK ago but i had Zero energy hgshg  
4\. why did i make a big deal out of hashi/madara/tobi watching machiko in the beginning but then they all presumably leave her COMPLETELY ALONE in the middle of the chapter???????? i had a scene but i had to cut it, she's with hikaku, nobody panic


	8. november / december

**(new moon)**

Dear Madara,

Let me know when you arrive! I’ve told the messenger hawk to take this letter directly to the folks at the temple but I’m not sure when it’ll reach you. Things are a bit of a mess here. The deceased Daimyō’s son is supposed to be taking over his father’s position, but as he’s only seven years old, we’re in a bit of a predicament. Luckily the only people who know about the assassination are all of us here, and…all of Suna, I imagine. Although, from the look of things, he didn’t expect his little operation to go as smoothly as it did, or else he would have sent shinobi into the Land of Fire by now. We’re keeping everything secure here. <strike> It feels strange, to be not-quite at war </strike> <strike> I don’t know how long I expected this peace to last </strike> <strike> I’d feel at least a bit more at ease if you were here</strike> I’m feeling good about things, though. Take your time with the local clans, and don’t rush back on my account; we’re all right here for the time being. I have faith in you! 

All my best,

Hashirama

* * *

**(waxing crescent - i)**

Hashirama, 

It was nice to see Tsurugi. Thanks for sending him. 

I have a lot to write but not a lot of paper to write it on—forgive me if this gets messy. The first day of negotiations is finally over. It seems there’s some sort of long-time power struggle between the Daimyō and the local clans here. The current Daimyō is a real piece of work. The strongest clan here—I don’t know exactly how the contract works, but the Daimyō owns their surname. It seems he controls their every move (or at least within the confines of the Land of Wind). And all of the other clans have much less military strength than they do, so in effect he’s got all of the local power under his thumb. He was hardly intimidating with the Susanoo’s talons at his throat though—although I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Daimyōs are always like this—always squabbling over nothing and sending shinobi to do all of their dirty work, with no thought to the catastrophes they’re causing. I think this one’s learned his lesson, though. I’m still keeping a close watch on him, but at any rate, he doesn’t seem quite so eager to attack Konoha at the moment.

Obviously there’s still a lot of work to be done. Suna is a bit of a mess too. Makes me miss the days of building an entire village from scratch. This one is already half-built, and on rather unstable foundations. Reto—who is the leader of that clan I mentioned—is all right. He’s a little abrasive, but he clearly cares a lot about his family. <strike> I hate to say it but he reminds me of your brother. </strike>

All the locals found the name Uchiha very funny, it seems. I’ll send you the fan they gave me, once I can find a large enough bird to carry it. 

Madara

* * *

**(waxing crescent - ii)**

Dear Madara,

Thank you for your letter! <strike> I can’t believe you wrote back</strike> You are working so hard! Tell me about the animals and plants out there in the desert. What is life like in the village? How are you doing? I’ll write more later—got to run to a meeting and Tsurugi is being very impatient with me.

<strike>Love</strike> Be in touch soon, 

Hashirama

* * *

**(waxing crescent - iii)**

Hashirama,

Sorry about Tsurugi—don’t take it personally though. He’s impatient with everybody. Well it’s very dry here, as one would expect. I’ve been waking up with a nosebleed these past few days. I found a scorpion in my sandal this morning, and there are centipedes everywhere here, especially in the old temple. All of the rooms have succulents. Mine has a collection of tiny cacti on the windowsill—you know the odd knobbly ones that have so many needles that they look like hoary old men covered in white hair? Of course you do. 

There are other species of cacti everywhere out here. There is a huge cluster of tiny barbed round ones right outside my window. I’m tempted to put one of them under the Daimyō’s pillow. Some of the cacti here are even taller than you. Really—Reto is about your height and they positively tower over him. Everything is very large out here actually. The vultures here are massive, and they fly quite low. We regularly see foxes and sand cats along with all sorts of lizards. I also caught a glimpse of something one night that looked like a deer, but it had either one too many antlers or one too many heads. I haven’t seen anything like it since. 

Anyway. Have you found an acting Daimyō yet? How is the Uchiha clan doing? How is everybody? How are you?

Madara

* * *

**(first quarter)**

Dear Madara, 

<strike> I’m very tired of fighting fighting other people’s battles</strike>

Forgive me. Suffice it to say that everything you said about Daimyōs in your first letter rings more and more true with each passing day. I’ve been drafting letters to local clans all evening, and it’s been cloudy all afternoon, so I’m extremely sleepy right now. But—a scorpion! And centipedes, you say? I got the fan you sent, by the way. I haven’t found a place to put it yet, as it’s too big to go on the mantle, too tall to stand up against the wall, and too…papery to put outside. Especially since it’s been raining an awful lot here lately… I’m sure you must be missing rainy weather!

Also, please do not put a cactus under the Sand Daimyō’s pillow in the middle of our international negotiations, no matter how much he may deserve it.

I’m off to bed, but I’ll be thinking of you,

Hashirama

* * *

**(waxing gibbous - i)**

Hashirama,

I was only joking. I would never do that. Assassination via cactus is much too subtle a method for my liking. Anyway—remind me to tell you about the village’s greenhouse. It seems Reto’s younger brother is in charge of it because he uses a lot of non-local plants in his sealing formulas (I didn’t know you could use plants in sealing formulas but this man clearly knows what he’s doing—he’s the one who has Shukaku sealed away in a tea kettle right now, of all places). I think it must be a different type of fuinjutsu from the stuff Mito does, as it’s very nature-based as opposed to Mito’s more purely chakra-based approach. Seems like something you might enjoy. 

The rift between the Daimyō and the local clans here runs much deeper than I had realized. I’ve been talking to Reto’s brother about it all afternoon. It seems he was designated at birth to be Shukaku’s host, because of his enormous amounts of latent chakra—apparently someone that powerful only comes around every five generations or so. Of course as he was growing up he was rightfully none too happy about having this responsibility thrust on him without his permission, but even now he has no chance of challenging the Daimyō here over it, because the Daimyō is using his brother and the rest of his family as leverage—as he’s got the whole clan under his control. It looks like he’s held off accepting his role as Shukaku’s jinchūriki for just about as long as he can, because Reto’s thirty-three-year free-will contract with the Daimyō is almost up (after which point he will either exist solely to do his bidding or die), and there’s still the village to worry about on top of all that.

But there still may be hope. I think at this point enough people are dissatisfied with the Daimyō that it might not be long before he’s removed from the power structure completely. They’re saying he bit off more than he could chew, trying to attack Konoha when his own village was barely stable. And not to mention the shinobi here don’t have to rely exclusively on him for income anymore, now that things are picking up on the infrastructure front. The only problem is that all of the potential replacement Daimyō candidates are just as bad as the current one (some are even worse if you can believe it), so there’s still a lot of work to do. It looks like I won’t just be able to bust heads and call it a day this time.

I will let you know if anything changes, and I’m betting it does, because in all honesty I’m not sure how much longer things can go on like this.

Madara

* * *

**(waxing gibbous - ii)**

Madara,

Hashirama told me about the Shukaku situation last night. Yes, it is possible to incorporate organic matter into fuinjutsu formulas—in fact, I’m guessing that in the case of a living animal like a tanuki, the plants actually help keep him contained. Still, something as significantly large as a bijū will require an incredible amount of precision and chakra control to keep sealed away, especially over a prolonged period of time. I’m impressed.

Wedding preparations are going well. We’ve decided to combine Senju and Uzumaki traditions, but according to my research, the last time a Senju married an Uzumaki during the winter was over 500 years ago, so it’s been difficult modernizing certain aspects of the ceremony. I’ve been making lots of soap over the past two weeks, and Tōka has been to every orchard in the Land of Fire in search of tangerines for the daifuku. She says hello, by the way. 

Don’t work too hard.

Mito

P.S. I am enclosing Machiko’s latest drawing of you. I think it’s quite a likeness. 

* * *

**(waxing gibbous - iii)**

Mito,

I’m so sorry I’m missing the wedding. <strike> I know it was selfish of me to go, but</strike> At the same time, we really didn’t have much of a choice. All my love to you both, and to Machiko of course. Her drawing skills are far better than mine, for what that’s worth.

Madara

* * *

**(waxing gibbous - iv)**

Dear Madara,

They started carving my face into the mountain today. It’s very embarrassing and according to the drafts and the models I’m going to end up looking much too serious, but I’m sure I will get used to it eventually! Perhaps in the spring I’ll have cliff swallows nesting in my nostrils, which will make the whole ordeal worth it a thousand times over. Also—I got the fuinjutsu flowers you sent! Tell Reto’s brother he’s very talented, and that I’d love to meet him someday. What was his name, by the way? 

Yours,

Hashirama 

* * *

**(waxing gibbous - v)**

Hashirama,

No name—the Daimyō owns it. Reto is only allowed to keep his because it’s part of his role as the clan leader. Or rather he does have a name, but it’s only known to people who already know what it is. Yeah—try to wrap your head around that one.

I tried the famous Suna Dango today. I was skeptical at first but they’re actually very good. Not sandy at all. However, I have sampled plenty of sand since arriving, mostly by accident. The wind is truly terrible here, especially in the evenings, and once the sand gets in one’s eyes and nose, there is no salvaging the situation.

I’m sure I must sound awfully petty complaining about all of this, but even the minor discomforts here are truly a testament to how far our village has come, even in these last few short months. Never had I imagined, when I was growing up, that one day I’d be <strike> coming home to</strike> sleeping in a comfortable bed each night, sampling different foods each day depending on my fancy, and—even more incredibly—coming to view these things as normal—expected even. <strike> If you can believe it, I had forgotten how it felt to go to bed starving</strike> This all is not to say that I’ve come to take these things for granted—I don’t think I could if I wanted to, especially after the incident at the Fire Temple, and especially now because Reto’s contract is almost up—thirteen more days remain after today. It’s looking increasingly like the clan’s only chance of survival is to use Shukaku to overthrow the Daimyō and break the contract entirely, but that would require Reto’s brother to seal the beast into himself permanently, in order to harness his power. So, understandably, things are tense.

Don’t worry about me though. 

Madara

* * *

**(full moon)**

_ Mito, _

_ I am miserable. _

It feels too desperate. He crosses it out absently and stares at the plain strip of wall in front of him. He sets down his quill, and shoves the beginnings of his letter aside. It’s late. He stretches in his chair. His shoulders ache mightily. He imagines Hashirama coming to him, stepping into the glow of the desk lamp. Perhaps he’d rest one warm hand on Madara’s shoulder, the way he does in the office sometimes. He can imagine Hashirama’s hair falling in dark waves, spilling all over the surface of the desk, and he carefully moves the lamp out of the way, then reconsiders and blows it out. He climbs into bed still clothed. Hashirama comes with him. He takes Hashirama’s hands between his own.

_ I love you, _ Madara tells him in his mind.

Hashirama’s face is somber. His eyes flicker upward, and meet Madara’s own with an earnest curiosity that’s nearly palpable. The air is thick with it. _ For how long? _ he says quietly.

Of course he knows this part of the fantasy by heart. _ A long time, _ he would say. _ Since the river... _

He’s awash with memories now—the way Hashirama’s chakra bubbles up like a lively brook when he laughs; the sound of his breath as he leans in close and whispers something meant just for Madara’s ears; the familiar mischievous crinkles around his eyes when he smiles or winks or struggles to hold in laughter. Even the smallest of these gestures ruins him. But then, Hashirama has always had the peculiar ability to set Madara’s heart on fire, burn it completely to ash. 

_ I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted this, _ Madara breathes, the words feeling thick in his throat.

_ Well, just this once, I hope I will live up to your expectations, _ Hashirama would say to him, in his lowest, most rumbly voice, and then he would slip his fingers beneath Madara’s mantle and put his broad hands all over Madara’s body. He pulls the mantle off; Madara kicks it away somewhere, unthinking, and doesn’t bother unwrapping his shins.

It’s all a familiar ritual by now—hands racing over skin, and Hashirama’s tongue hot on his neck; he licks his palm and skids the wetness down his front; it’s not even close to the real thing but he can imagine how it must feel anyway. His hands move lower, allows himself a tiny sigh. Tonight he lets himself think it. 

_ I love you too, Madara, _Hashirama says in his mind as they hold each other. The cacti on his windowsill are blooming.

* * *

**(waning gibbous - i)**

Dear Madara,

Do you need me to send more people over to help with negotiations? I’d send a clone, but they aren’t really suited for long-term travel…although, piling foreign aid onto an already unstable situation is never really the best way to go about things…we’ll have to be very careful. Not that we’re not always careful! Most of us, anyway. 

Let me attempt to distract you from the situation at hand by telling you about how the village has been doing!

Did you see the sunset last night? (I’m not sure when this letter will reach you, but you’d know the one I’m talking about if you saw it—it was bright red with long purple ribbons of clouds crisscrossing the sky in every direction. <strike> It reminded me of your Susanoo</strike> It was quite beautiful!) And Mito and Tōka’s wedding is next week, which I am officiating, so I’m a bit nervous, but I can’t just let them down! There are a lot of words to memorize for the ceremony, and I’m already so hazy from the winter weather, so it’s been hard… 

More news…We had snow flurries here yesterday! And I saw a fox crossing the path behind the Academy this morning—its fur was completely white, except for the tips of its ears, which were pitch black. And the snowbirds are out in full force; there must be more snow coming soon. I can’t say I’m excited for it, but at least it’s cozy inside… 

Also—I am sending along a draft of an official alliance proposal between us and Suna. It’s confidential, so don’t open it in public, when it arrives. Oh! I forgot to mention. The Hyūga clan may be joining the village before the end of the year. I’ll let you know how that develops, if at all. Negotiations have been pretty slow… 

Thank you for everything you’re doing,

Hashirama

* * *

**(waning gibbous - ii)**

Hashirama,

If the proposal is supposed to be confidential then next time at least put it through a cipher before you send it across national borders into enemy territory.

Madara 

* * *

**(waning gibbous - iii)**

Hashirama, 

Sorry for the taciturn response to your last letter—they’re rationing paper. It’s so cold in the desert after sunset. I look up at the stars and wonder if you are looking at them too. It reminds me of that time we were friends—the first time, when we were young, meeting up now and again in secret without knowing who the other was—and I’d look up at the night sky in between our meetings and think about all the things we’d said to each other. <strike>True strength is people who dream, people who believe in love.</strike> Those thoughts sustained me back then. <strike> My father</strike> You were a tiny spot of hope in an otherwise bleak world, then. <strike> Looking at you now is like looking at the sun. Forgive me, I don’t know what I’m saying </strike>

I suppose I’ve just been thinking a lot about the past recently. So much has happened since then. It makes me dizzy, thinking about it. Anyway sorry for the pointless letter. I’ll write again when something happens.

Madara

* * *

**(waning gibbous - iv)**

Madara,

I think you should talk to Hashirama.

Mito

P.S. Don’t forget that you still owe me a dance.

* * *

**(waning gibbous - v)**

Dear Madara,

<strike> I can’t stop thinking about </strike>

<strike> What did you mean when you kissed me </strike>

The night that you left…I know you were just playing the part of my husband, <strike>but </strike> <strike> I can’t help but wonder</strike> it reminded me of that night at the hot springs and everything that happened afterwards. I don’t ever want you to be a stranger. <strike>What was going through your head</strike> I know we already made up over it, but I just wanted to say again that I’m so sorry, and I never meant to hurt you, or make you uncomfortable in any way. Not that my intentions matter now that the damage is done, but I wanted to say it anyway. 

Hashirama

* * *

**(third quarter)**

Hashirama cries at Mito and Tōka’s wedding. It feels just like that night, a long time ago now, when Machiko first arrived at the Senju compound. Madara wasn’t there that night, either. 

_ Stop being miserable, _ he tells himself again. _ This isn’t a tragedy, nor is it your moment to sulk. This is a happy night. _

It’s shameful, he thinks. Because he _ is _ happy; he just…he would be happier if Madara was here. The Uzumaki Clan masks on the wall all grin at him in their uncanny way from the back wall, and he swears their black eyes follow him around the room as he watches Mito and Tōka, arm in arm and beaming, lighting the cluster of candles at the head of the table. The two clan symbols go well together, Hashirama thinks, staring at the spiral-embossed vajras that Mito has drawn along the wood grain. Then he drinks a toast, and then another, before he can finally stop himself. He hasn’t had a proper drink since that time—since Indra’s brew. But with Madara gone, he’s in no danger of making a fool of himself. Of course, the damage is already done. 

He thinks of what Madara would say if he knew. (This _ isn’t _ just about Madara, he reminds himself, feeling bubbly and warm, but he still thinks it.)

It’s pointless to mourn for something that never even happened, Hashirama thinks, and it hurts deep in his chest to think that he’ll be mourning it for the rest of his life.

* * *

**(waning crescent - i)**

Mito— 

I’m sorry for bothering you with this while you are presumably away on your honeymoon but I can’t take it. I’ve drafted so many letters to him, but none of them are right. I can’t tell him. I want to tell him face to face but I know I could never do it. I don’t know what I want anymore. I feel like I wasted so much time worrying about the future that I missed out on all the time I could have just spent with him. All of this unforeseen mess with Suna really goes to show you how precarious it all is—the village, the alliance, everything—but how precious, as well. I will pour my soul into the village because it is my dream as much as it is Hashirama’s, and it is our shared dream more than it is either of ours by ourselves. Nothing will change that—even if I never in a thousand years tell him my feelings, even if I do tell him and he doesn’t return them. 

The Sharingan can detect patterns. We Uchiha trick our opponents into thinking we see the future, when in reality we are simply abnormally attuned to the present. 

I am lost, Mito. I don’t know what I was thinking, kissing him like that. I can’t get it out of my head. I should never have done it. I had resigned myself to a life without him in it; I was prepared for my self-imposed isolation. But before I left, I wanted—just once—to at least…give him an indication. Even if it was just for a moment; even if we never did it again. I was simply being selfish. The kiss was for me, not for him. Everything I’ve felt for him over the years—it’s all real; it’s all painful. I thought that after I did it I would be able to make peace with my feelings. But they’ve just gotten worse. Everything has gotten worse. I love him—Mito, I love him so much that I am afraid my heart will burst open from it.

I don’t know what to do. Please, please tell me if I am doing the right thing.

Madara

* * *

**(waning crescent - ii)**

For cold nights—keep your hands warm!

<strike> Love</strike> Hashirama

* * *

**(waning crescent - iii)**

Hashirama,

Sorry this letter is so late. Thank you for the gloves. They fit perfectly. <strike> Did you somehow memorize my hand size</strike> I’ve been wearing them most nights like you suggested and they make all the difference. Are they handmade?

Madara

* * *

**(waning crescent - iv)**

Dear Madara, 

Yes, the gloves were handmade! I’m glad you like them. I am sending your hikidemono separately, as it seems there was some confusion over who got what as we were all leaving the reception. I tried to make sure you ended up with a little bit of everything. Let me know which of the sweets you like the best and I can send some more to you, unless you like the pineapple ones, in which case I have already eaten them all and will have to find more. The ginger ones are also good. 

When you get back, if you’d like, let’s have a drink together.

Warmly (of course!),

Hashirama

* * *

**(waning crescent - v)**

Hashirama, 

It’s all over. Shukaku swallowed the Daimyō. Or rather—Reto’s brother released Shukaku from the kettle, sealed him into himself, and then performed the Desert Layered Imperial Funeral Seal, trapping the Daimyō for all eternity and thereby breaking his whole family’s cursed contract. <strike>I can’t even begin to understand</strike> <strike>I’m still shocked</strike> <strike>How I wish, more than anything, that I had his resolve</strike>

That he would volunteer to seal the beast into himself, after struggling against his fate for so long—that he would put the village ahead of himself without question and do everything in his power to protect everyone in it, even if it meant giving up what little agency he still had. I don’t know what to think. Are we all ultimately destined to follow a path that’s already been chosen for us? And how—how!—could he have so willingly chosen to believe in the village, to believe in its future? I—

I want to believe in the village’s future. I’ve spent so long feeling so uncertain, and yet— 

I don’t ever want us to become strangers. This life with you, in the village…I long for it. I miss the rain. I miss the village, I miss the clan. <strike>I miss you.</strike> All the people I love are so far away, now. Maybe that was why I volunteered to go in the first place, because I couldn’t bear to see us drift apart from such a close distance—couldn’t bear to see the hurt I was causing. I thought it would be easier to just separate us myself. But I am weak, always weak. <strike>I don’t know how much more of this I can take.</strike>

I just wish you happiness—you and your family and the clan and the village. Even if it doesn’t seem like it, sometimes. 

Forgive me—wasting paper again.

Madara

* * *

**(new moon)**

The electricity in Suna goes out after sunset. Bunpuku and Madara are up on the roof, having one last drink before bed, not saying much. Madara shivers, staring up at the stars. It seems that the more he looks, the more of them there are. 

“Man, beast—it doesn’t matter,” Bunpuku is saying. “Shukaku and I understand each other. We are both capable of terrible things, you know, but we’re just lonely, deep down—we _ all _are. We all want to love and be loved above everything else.”

Madara thinks of warm broad hands and long hair and soft comfortable chakra beckoning him and—_home,_ _I want to go home—_

“Love is a wild thing,” Bunpuku says, swirling the sake around in his cup. “My teacher once said that there is something savage in the calmest and most composed of us, and something serene when we are at our most turbulent…every one of us is a cacophony of contradictions.”

Madara watches a shooting star make its dazzling arc across the sky. He lifts his sake cup to his mouth.

“It’s so easy to feel lonely in the desert,” he says. Bunpuku nods sagely. “Ordinarily I wouldn’t mind—I’d welcome it, even. But…”

He sighs as he finishes his drink. He doesn’t even know where to begin. Bunpuku, Reto—they both have enough on their minds right now.

“What’s that?” Bunpuku says suddenly. Madara looks up. A pale shape is gliding towards them over the rooftops, drawing closer with powerful wingbeats. 

“Tsurugi,” Madara says, holding out his arm. The hawk lights down on his glove, ruffling his wings with an air of supreme importance. There’s a little box strapped to his back. Madara strokes the bird’s head as he undoes the latches holding the box into the straps. It’s small, but surprisingly heavy. “Well done,” he murmurs, scratching under Tsurugi’s chin. “Well done, Tsu.” 

He opens up the box. A miniature basket of colorful hard candies. A polished wooden snuff bottle. And a pale green bar of soap, neatly wrapped in washi. He lifts it to his nose, takes a deep breath in. It has a light, misty, earthy smell, something that calls to mind damp earth and new growth and changing seasons and petrichor— 

Madara blinks back tears, grateful for the darkness. “He sent me the rain,” he says, laughing as it dawns on him. Of _ course _ Hashirama would find a way to do it. “I—I don’t believe it.”

Bunpuku begins to laugh. “Madara, it sounds like you’re homesick,” he says. “And no wonder; you’ve been away for nearly a month!”

Madara blinks. His mouth falls open. A month—that’s _ nothing, _ he thinks. The clan would routinely spend months away from the main compound, roaming around the Land of Fire with the bare minimum of supplies, only stopping to raid villages and farms on occasion. But he thinks of the village, and of Hashirama, and his heart sinks and gives a great leap at the same time. “I’ve never…” 

_ I’ve never had a home to miss before. _

It all falls into place in that moment, as he sets the box of treasures aside and opens the tiny letter tied to Tsuguri’s scaly leg. His hands are shaking, but for the first time in a long time, not from fear, or anger, or sadness. This time it’s something else. He holds the letter to his chest, taking in a long breath of cold desert air, turning the words over and over in his mind.

_ Since you were missing the rain. _

_ Love, _

_ Hashirama _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> man, i just.........all of that canon shit??? that was bad timeline naruto. and believe me when i say it’s ALL good timeline from here on out. welcome to the good life dear reader


	9. madara and hashirama

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there are no privileged locations. if you stay put, your place may become a holy center, not because it gives you special access to the divine, but because in your stillness you hear what might be heard anywhere. all there is to see can be seen from anywhere in the universe, if you know how to look.
> 
> (scott russell sanders)

Another catastrophe of a day, Hashirama thinks. The interim Daimyō’s committee isn’t getting along. Negotiations with the Hyūga clan have taken a sharp turn south. Mito and Tōka are still away. And Madara is gone, obviously. He doesn’t have the energy to write a letter, not tonight. It’s simply too painful to think about. 

Tobirama pokes his head into the bedroom that evening just as Hashirama is pulling back the covers and retreating into bed.

“I can sense Madara’s chakra,” he says, “along the western border to the Land of Fire. Thought you should know.”

Hashirama stops what he’s doing. All of the air immediately leaves his lungs. He looks up at his brother, incredulous. “He’s coming back?” he says, his voice an uneven rasp. “Already?”

Tobirama frowns, considering. He closes his eyes. “He’s stopped right now, actually,” he says slowly. “I’m not sure why. Might be trouble at the border.”

“Oh,” Hashirama breathes, his brain a wild blur of racing thoughts. The only clear thing in his mind is the aching need to get to Madara as soon as possible. “Should—should I—?”

“Madara can take care of himself,” Tobirama says with a rare smile. “You stay here. Be ready to meet him when he arrives. I’m going to bed.”

He slides the door closed with a _ snap. _

Hashirama’s exhaustion evaporates, leaving him instantly, acutely awake. He leaps out of bed and paces the length of the window, ignoring the chill of the wooden floor against his bare feet. Then he kneels by the bookshelf and opens the small wooden box there, pulls out the stack of Madara’s letters. He carries them to the bed and sits down cross-legged on the blankets and reads through them again, occasionally pausing to run a thumb over Madara’s familiar spiked signature, or to ponder on a word or a phrase here and there. Then he reaches under his pillow and retrieves his favorite letter, the one where Madara had talked about looking at the stars, and reads it over and over until his eyes are stinging.

* * *

When Madara finally comes to him that night, Hashirama is standing barefoot in a field of stars, watching him fade in and out of sight like a ghost. _ I missed you, _ Hashirama says, and reaches out to hold him tight. _ Madara, I missed you so much. I love you. I love you. I love you… _

_ Hashirama, _ Madara says, his hand moving towards Hashirama’s own, their fingers nearly touching. _ Hashirama… _

Hashirama stirs, squeezing his eyes shut. Then he comes to with a jolt. He’s alone in the room, his blankets tangled at his feet, his nemaki hanging uselessly open. He sighs. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but now that he’s awake again, the full extent of his weariness hits him. Madara’s letters are strewn across the bed; one is stuck to his cheek. He peels it off as carefully as he can, but the corner still tears a little. Just this action alone brings him to tears, as all small things tend to do lately. He thinks of how Madara would laugh and say _ Hashirama, you’re too sensitive, and besides the real thing is right here, so stop worrying about that stupid little letter already _—he runs the back of his hand across his eyes, scrubbing away his tears, and puts the letters aside in a safer place. 

Everything feels wrong. It’s bad enough to wake up in the dark, disoriented and lost, but to wake up _ alone _ in the dark puts a crushing weight on his chest, one that no amount of sleep can ever alleviate. He can already feel his eyelids drooping again, and he puts his head in his hands and tries— 

(His head is nodding up and down.)

And tries— 

(His eyes keep sliding closed; he can’t help it. It’s just so _ cold.) _

—and tries to stay awake.

* * *

He wakes up to a frigid hand on his shoulder. His eyes pop open in the dark. The first thing he sees are the stars, glittering ever-coldly outside his window. There’s a dark human-shaped gap in his vision, though, and slowly Madara comes into focus before him, his face bloody, his hair a matted black tangle.

“You startled me,” Hashirama whispers, shocked that his voice works at all.

“Sorry,” Madara whispers back. He sits down on the bed and begins to unwrap his shins. The cloth is covered in blood. Madara sees him looking, and clicks his tongue. “It’s not mine,” he says. “Bit of a mess at the west border. It’s all taken care of—just a couple of passing vagabonds from the Land of Rivers. I sent them on their way.”

“You’re all right?” Hashirama says, still amazed that he’s able to hold this conversation at all; amazed that Madara is here, corporeal, alive, real.

Madara makes a small satisfied _ hmph _ noise. “Of course I am.” He stands up from the bed, wipes his bloody brow with one sleeve. “I’m going for a walk.”

Hashirama climbs uncertainly out of bed, suddenly intensely aware of the fact that Madara has definitely seen the stack of letters next to him on the bedside table. His heart races. About a thousand questions bubble up in his brain. “Where?” is what he decides on, at last.

“I’m not sure yet,” Madara admits. “I just need to walk for a bit before I sleep. And…” He hesitates for a moment. “I don’t want to be alone.”

Hashirama follows him out the door and onto the wooden porch. The cold hits him like the Susanoo’s massive fist, and he shudders against the wind. 

“Walk with me?” Madara says.

Hashirama follows him at once, trusting him completely despite the dark and the cold and his own unsure footing in the frozen grass. But being with Madara is like standing in a bubble of golden summer-like warmth, and he’s drawn almost unconsciously to him, seeking heat and protection and safety, as if the moment he steps out of the bounds of Madara’s chakra he’ll drown in the cold. Now that Madara is back, he doesn’t know how he’s survived the winter without him. He feels fleetingly like he’s fourteen and gangly again, and Madara is dragging him over to see a shiny rock, or an oddly shaped stump, or something else he thinks (correctly, his brain adds, as Madara has always had a knack for that) Hashirama might like.

A few snowflakes go by as they slip out of the village gates. Madara seems to have figured out where he wants to walk to, as he’s now striding along with a sense of purpose. Hashirama steps carefully over a fallen log, then slips on an invisible patch of ice just beneath it. The surprised breath practically flies from his lungs. Immediately one of Madara’s hands seizes his left shoulder; the other steadies him at the small of his back, and Hashirama hears him exhale in relief as they both straighten up again.

“I’m all right,” Hashirama says, barely hearing his own voice over the deafening thunder of his heartbeat. They keep walking. Hashirama finds himself running his own hand over the shoulder that Madara had grabbed, unable to rid himself of the sensation. He curses himself. Pathetic, he thinks, and then he imagines Madara lifting him up in his powerful arms and carrying him back to the village. He sighs as they walk.

Somewhere up ahead is the far-off rushing sound of the river, subdued from the cold, but still growing louder with each second. Then the grass underfoot turns to frigid sand, and then to smooth pebbles. Madara leads him down the bank a ways, pausing to guide him across the particularly uneven areas. Then he stops.

“I wanted to bring you to the river to say this,” Madara says, sitting down on the pebbles with a sigh. “It just felt right. The whole time I was in the desert, I…” 

Hashirama sits down next to him, placing one hand on the ground. The river is churning under a paper-thin layer of dark glassy ice. 

“You said to me, a long time ago,” Madara says, “that you would come to the river because watching the water would wash away all the haziness in your heart.”

Hashirama’s eyes widen. That Madara still remembers his words from so many years ago—it fills him with warmth; he’s overbrimming with it, as if the pulsing stuff that makes up his soul is spilling out of his chest with each heartbeat. And, what’s more, everything he had been so worried about earlier this evening—the negotiations with the Hyūga clan, the Daimyō, the village—it’s all fading away to nothing.

“And then you asked me if I felt the same…” Madara bites his lip, worries it between his teeth for a moment. “I never told you. But I did—I always did—I still do.”

Hashirama looks at him in surprise, turns so quickly his hair swings into his eyes. It feels just like a continuation of that day, so many years ago, when he had sat at the riverbank in his mourning clothes, his voice ruined from crying, unable to escape the thought of Itama’s tiny bloody body in Hashirama’s too-large hand-me-down armor slumped against the boulder. But, he thinks, that was _ also _ the day Madara had returned—and from that moment on, the river was no longer solely a place for solitude; it had become something completely different. 

“I had never met…_ anyone _ like you before,” Madara says, his brow furrowing. “Nor have I, since. Even if it had seemed insignificant—even if all we did was mess around for an afternoon; even if I never thought in a thousand years that the dream we shared would ever come true, no matter how much I wanted it to…and yet here we are against all odds, after all this time…” 

But the paradox of their friendship makes perfect sense, Hashirama thinks, no matter how slim the chances of it happening had been. Of _ course _ their paths had crossed, and of _ course _ they had continued to meet, because they both were the same, seeking each other without even knowing it—

Madara’s voice shakes, but whether it’s from the cold or from emotion, Hashirama can’t tell. “That was the first time I really understood…” He looks up at the stars again, his lips parting slightly. “How it felt to choose someone for yourself…how wonderful it was to have someone like you I could come to…and to know that you could come to me too…”

He looks at Hashirama, his face alight with a confused mixture of emotions that Hashirama has only seen traces of before, at least on Madara. He’s frowning, but his lip is trembling as if he’s about to smile, and the odd brightness in his eyes tells Hashirama that he’s not the only one on the verge of tears. He’s not holding anything back, Hashirama thinks, for the first time in ages. Love, white hot and pure, erupts in Hashirama’s throat, his chest, his entire body. He’s beaming, but he’s crying, so relieved to have Madara back that everything he’s feeling is overflowing out of him in every direction at once—he’s positively bursting with adoration, and the tears now streaking freely down his cheeks feel like burning starlight…

“I didn’t know what it was, at first,” Madara says, “but I know now. I’ve known for a long time.” 

He takes a deep breath. His hands clench in his lap.

“I love you,” he says. “I think I always have.”

Hashirama’s mouth falls open. His tears stop.

“I must have tried to tell you a thousand times,” Madara continues, looking up at the sky in near supplication. He makes a sound that’s almost a laugh. “Oh—I’m no good with these things, Hashirama—I—”

There’s a split second of hesitation. Then Madara’s cold hands touch his cheeks and he’s leaning in closer and closer—one second there’s nothing, and the next, his chapped lips brush the corner of Hashirama’s mouth, as if he’s afraid to kiss him properly—as if there’s still a single persistent drop of lingering uncertainty left in his body, even now— 

Hashirama is quaking. Or the earth is—a tremor rises up from the ground but it’s plants, just plants emerging, bursting into life on the riverbank—swelling patches of moss and tiny curled-up ferns and little bunches of wildflowers here and there. Every winter ache, every stubborn spot of soreness is fading from his body. The ice on the river, already thin, is melting in great broad swaths; his eyes are closed but he can still feel it warming, warming—long trails of mist rise off the top of the river like enormous snakes, and he feels just the faintest snap of summer humidity quiver between them before it disappears.

“It’s all right,” Hashirama mumbles, when Madara draws back far too soon, and he leans in towards him again, drawn to him with nearly magnetic force, already missing the warmth of his touch, the feeling of his lips— 

_ Who cares if you’re not good with these things, _ Hashirama thinks; _ you are perfect—Madara, you are perfect _—

Madara pulls back again, his eyes wide and scarlet. His mouth is moving, but no words are coming out.

“You…” he finally manages.

“I love you too,” Hashirama gasps, dissolving into tears again at how good it feels to say it. “Madara—” His voice breaks. It’s as if an enormous weight has been lifted from his chest. “Please, please, let me be yours.”

All the tension evaporates from Madara’s shoulders, his forehead, his jaw. He slides down against the mossy riverbank with a tiny shuddering gasp, palms curled open towards the sky. Hashirama reaches for him and—wonder of wonders—Madara reaches back. He throws his arms around Hashirama’s neck, practically crushes their bodies together, and Hashirama breathes in Madara’s leather-wool-smoke scent with a shiver. He hadn’t realized just how much he had missed all the little things like that—the way he smells, the coarseness of his hair, the exact shape of his hands… 

He can feel Madara crying into the crook of his neck, tears moistening the collar of his nemaki. Hashirama reaches up and strokes the back of his head, starting at the very top and moving all the way down his back, tries to get a gentle rhythm going to match the soft warm healing chakra on his fingertips.

“This whole time,” Hashirama says, the timing of it dawning on him all at once in a horrible sort of wave. He almost forgets to keep combing through Madara’s hair for a moment. “It—it must have been terrible. Why didn’t you…?” 

Madara straightens up again, biting his lip. 

“I,” he swallows, “was afraid…” 

Hashirama’s heart is fluttering madly in his chest. “Afraid?”

“That you’d turn me down,” Madara says, his voice deep and throaty and thick with something completely undefinable, “because you didn’t feel the same way that I did.”

Hashirama bites his tongue. Tears are burning—burning!—against his cheeks, and once again he feels as if he is made of stars; Madara makes him feel cosmic and beautiful and important because Madara _ is _ cosmic and beautiful and important—but it’s not a dream this time, or a genjutsu—Madara is _real—_

“And I was afraid of the future, of the village, of everything,” Madara says, “but I still wanted to belong so badly… I wanted—I want—”

He bows his head, tears dripping down his face again.

“What…” Hashirama begins, rifling through his scattered thoughts in search of the right words. “What made you decide? To tell me, I mean?”

Madara scrubs at his eyes for a moment. He reaches into his hip pouch and pulls out a small flat object that Hashirama recognizes as one of his own letters, wrinkled and dotted with blood. He unfolds it and hands it to Hashirama to read. 

Hashirama squints at it. His eyes follow the line of familiar words that he had written not even a week ago, and then he sees the signature, and his declaration of love, which—after all his careful editing over the course of the month—he had completely forgotten to cross out, and feels his face turn very hot and his hands turn very cold.

“Did I really write that?” Hashirama stammers, his fingers shaking on the letter. “I—I hadn’t meant to. I mean—I meant to! I just—”

Madara laughs. 

“It’s all right,” he says. “It wouldn’t be the first time.” 

Hashirama blinks. “Huh?”

“You proposed to me, you know,” Madara says, “months ago, now, during the banquet at the alliance ceremony.”

Hashirama slumps over on the riverbank, puts his face in his hands. “Oh, dear,” he says. “I was afraid I might have done something stupid like that.”

“Not stupid,” Madara says. 

Hashirama blinks. “What?”

“Well…” Madara hesitates again. “We ended up pretending, anyway. But now the Daimyō’s dead, and there’s no need…” 

“The village still doesn’t know,” Hashirama says quietly. “I’ve only told Tobirama.”

Madara smiles faintly. “Mito knows, too,” he says. “She knew from the beginning. Everyone’s an open book to her.”

The thought—the wildly inappropriate, utterly stupid thought—is just beginning to dawn on him when Madara voices what he’s thinking aloud.

“Let’s get married,” he murmurs, “really, this time.”

Hashirama’s mouth goes dry. “What?”

Madara glares at him. “Do I look like I’m joking?”

“R—right now? Right here?” Hashirama stammers, glancing around them at the dark quiet riverbank. But at the same time he’s full of fireworks, multitudes of giddy explosions spiraling into life in the pit of his stomach, and in the next instant he’s made up his mind completely. 

“You said it yourself,” Madara says. “It’s always been the two of us, together…it just makes sense.”

The words stir up some long-lost hazy memory in him. It feels familiar, dusky, summery…calls to mind simpler days, when the world was not so cold and dark…he clings to it like he is clinging to Madara…it seems absurd…and yet… 

“Well?” Madara says quietly, reaching for Hashirama’s hand and lacing their fingers together. Hashirama squeezes Madara’s hand. “Hashirama, will you marry me?”

He’s at a loss for words at first. But then he looks at the river, and then back at Madara’s earnest, dirty face; at his torn mantle and his messy hair; at the blood smudged under his eyes and drying under his fingernails—and it hits him that he’s known the answer to Madara’s question for a very, very long time, regardless of how long it’s taken him to realize it. He knows his own eyes must be red with tears and exhaustion, knows that his face must be pale and wan from the soporific tug of winter. But none of it matters, other than the fact that they are here, together, despite everything,_ because _ of everything. 

Without a trace of doubt in his body, he nods.

* * *

Madara is falling asleep on Hashirama’s shoulder when the rain starts. Hashirama can see long gray smudges of it moving over the hills in the distance, and the patches of early sunlight in the trees along the bank are getting scarcer and scarcer as he watches.

“We should get back to the village,” Hashirama says reluctantly, wrapping his haori more tightly around himself.

Madara stirs. “Right,” he says.

They stand up together, still holding hands. Hashirama runs his thumb over the countless little scars on Madara’s fingers as they begin to walk. They leave a trail of golden-green moss behind them.

“You were right,” Madara says as they come over the crest of the last hill. The clifftop is in view now, glittering with early-morning frost. 

Hashirama tilts his head, nonplussed. “Huh?”

“That statue of yours _ does _ look much too serious,” Madara says, grinning at Hashirama’s confused expression, “Hokage-sama.”

* * *

They collapse into bed together twenty minutes later. The light outside the window is soft and violet. Hashirama is much too tired to move now, and he’s asleep within minutes with Madara curled up tightly against his back, both of them covered in sand and blood and dirt.

“Was that a dream?” Hashirama murmurs faintly, some hours later. He doesn’t remember waking up, nor can he imagine how long they’ve been asleep. The only thing he knows is that lying here in his bed, with Madara right next to him, feels unbelievably wonderful.

Madara is reaching for him again, snaking his arms around Hashirama’s torso. He feels Madara smile against the back of his neck. “Which part?”

Hashirama holds Madara’s folded arm to his chest like it’s the most precious thing in the world. “All of it,” he says, his eyes falling closed again.

Madara snorts. “It had better not have been a dream,” he says. He kicks back the blankets. “It’s warm,” he says. He stirs, scooting up against the pillows into a semi-sitting position. “Hashirama,” he says, in a warning sort of voice.

Hashirama makes a weak attempt to reclaim his hold on Madara’s forearm, but ends up holding his hip instead. “Huh?”

“It smells like spring,” Madara says, now craning his neck to peer out the window. “Did you make it spring?”

Hashirama grins, his eyes still closed. He becomes aware of a new stand of apricot trees that have just recently taken root in the yard, probably sometime while he and Madara were sleeping, and knows that so many thousands of tiny pink blossoms are about to burst into life. “Maybe a little,” he says, carefully slowing down their progress so that it lines up a little more evenly with the natural progression of the seasons. He sinks back down beneath the covers until just his nose and forehead are exposed. “You helped.”

Madara lies down again too. Hashirama listens to him breathe for a while. Then his breath hitches in his throat. “Can I…?” he says.

Hashirama rolls over so that they’re facing each other. Madara reaches for him again, puts their foreheads together. Hashirama stares into those dark eyes of his, almost hidden by so much hair, and realizes he can nearly see himself reflected back in them; then they flash red for a split second and Hashirama sees a thousand things at once—Madara in his oversized robes curled in on himself at the riverbank, clearly waiting for Hashirama to arrive—Madara a bit older and wilder, with his hair down to his shoulders, sinking to his knees at the top of the cliff that they had climbed and putting his face in his hands—Madara at the Uchiha clan’s archery contest just this year, lifting his blindfold and glancing every so often into the crowd to see if Hashirama is watching him, and the resulting thrill of combined panic and anticipation shocking through him every time he manages to catch Hashirama looking— 

Their legs are a little tangled. Hashirama keeps remembering, over and over, that he is free, _ finally, _ to feel…to touch…He runs his hands down Madara’s sides, enamored with the little gasp Madara makes as Hashirama’s fingers brush his hips. Madara’s breathing is shallow now.

“All right?” Hashirama says quietly. 

Madara doesn’t answer at first.

“It’s just…” A very shaky exhale. “Overwhelming,” he decides, a moment later. “Your chakra.”

“Sorry,” Hashirama whispers, drawing as much chakra as he can out of the air around them and back into his body.

“Can we just…” Madara sighs for a long time. “Stay like this? For a little while longer?”

Nothing has ever sounded better to Hashirama. “All right,” he mumbles. Just outside, he remembers, thousands of brand-new apricot buds are quivering with silent tension, ready to blossom at any moment.


	10. beginning

Hashirama’s chakra is in every pore of his body.

“I know about that boy you’ve been meeting up with,” Tajima says, his voice echoing through Madara’s brain with that particular nightmare-like cadence. “Madara, you must kill him.” 

His father’s glowing eyes spin in their sockets. Then Izuna is dying in his arms, his skin pale and sunken and his side still weeping old blood—he’s blinking away black spots on the battlefield, unable to see Hashirama’s face—then he looks in the mirror and finds that he can’t see his own face, either—he stares down at the Senju clan from atop the Susanoo, feeling like he’s floating, and the jutsu’s ungodly power pulses through him, lifting his hair clean off his back—now he’s young and scrawny again, crying alone in his cot with a carved skipping stone clenched in one hand—his eyes ache like hell, blurry, bleeding—

_ You must kill him. _

Then Butsuma’s rough voice sounds, as Madara is retreating from the river at his father’s side, his back to Hashirama: “His sharingan was awakened just now?”

_ Just now? _

* * *

Madara awakens with a frantic huff of an exhale, his heart pounding madly. He blinks away the nightmare and remembers a different morning, months ago now, when he had woken up in the tent with Hashirama at his side, but had been unable to touch—to feel— 

Something in the air is different from yesterday. It feels kinder, sweeter, softer than before. The dream is fading fast from his mind now. It’s nearly afternoon, a bright, fresh, warm day, and a cluster of crows are calling jauntily from one of the new apricot trees in Hashirama’s garden. Huge white clouds, piled higher than Madara has ever seen them this time of year, glide by outside the window. He sighs. He’s safe. He’s alive. Hashirama is here. Everything that happened—it was all real.

“Tell me you’re real,” Madara says as Hashirama wakes up. He wants to hear it again.

Hashirama smiles as he stirs. “I’m real, darling,” he murmurs. 

Madara shivers. He likes that. 

“I dreamed of this for years, you know,” Madara says. “I thought it would never happen. And yet, I still—”

“This is real,” Hashirama says, and he smiles. “It’s all real.”

“I love you,” Madara tries. His voice is raspy. Louder, now. “I love you. I love you. I love you…”

Hashirama laughs, and it sounds like water tumbling over pebbles in a brook. “I love you too,” he says, his face alight with it. Patches of late-morning sunlight glide over the pillows. 

“I kept all your letters,” Madara says. “I brought them home with me. I memorized each one.”

“Oh?” Hashirama says, his chakra cascading off him in curious spirals. The potted plants on Hashirama’s windowsill seem to perk up suddenly.

“I can show you, if you’d like,” Madara says. Hashirama nods, beaming. “I even kept all those sweets wrappers you sent, gods help me.”

He sits up, and leans over to the side of the mattress in order to retrieve the letters, only to be met with some very painful resistance.

“Fuck!” Madara shouts as they attempt to move away from each other. Several startled crows flap away at the noise. “Stop—don’t move—” 

He seizes the end of his hair and yanks it hard. To his dismay, Hashirama comes with him.

“Oh no,” Hashirama says sadly, reaching for the knot in their hair. “Hang on—we can untangle it—” 

“Let me do it,” Madara says, reaching behind his back for the knot. 

“You’re just making it worse,” Hashirama says, batting his hands away. He picks away at the knot for a few seconds before settling back against the pillows in defeat.

“I feel this is a metaphor for something,” Madara says, after a period of sunny silence.

* * *

“So,” Tobirama says.

Madara stirs the eggs in the pan. 

“Hashirama told me about your little plan,” Tobirama continues. “Pretending to be married for—for _ clout.” _

“It wasn’t for _ clout,” _ Madara starts, but Tobirama keeps talking as if nothing has happened.

“Hashirama loves you a lot, you know,” he says.

Madara turns the flame down slightly. “I know.”

“He’d die for you, if you asked.”

“I know.”

The pan sizzles. Madara flips the eggs one last time. 

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Tobirama says, suddenly sounding very awkward.

Madara turns the stove off, wary. “What?” he says.

“I want you to teach me about the Uchiha clan,” Tobirama says. “You know—properly.”

Madara squints at him. “Why the sudden interest?” he says.

Tobirama purses his lips. “Well, we are family now,” he says. “Officially, I mean.”

Madara snatches the toast out of the toaster as it dings. “And you didn’t ask when you thought we were married before, because…?” 

Tobirama looks at the floor. “Didn’t want to offend you,” he says. “Then Hashirama would be upset, and nothing would get done, and the village would be a mess…” He lets out a deep breath, and looks up at Madara with some difficulty. “I don’t have any ulterior motives, I swear. Would—would you be willing to do it?”

Madara considers him for a moment. “Yeah, all right,” he says. “I’ll take you to the shrine sometime.”

“Right,” Tobirama says, suddenly businesslike. He begins pouring the coffee. “Take good care of my brother,” he says, reaching into the fridge for a carton of cream.

Madara smiles. He thinks of Hashirama, still asleep in the next room. “I will,” he says, and Tobirama nods again.

“I know you will,” he says, and they shake on it.

* * *

“Uchiha Madara!” Mito shouts from across the street. Madara very nearly drops the herbs he had been inspecting and quickly passes the shopkeeper a handful of ryō. He turns around. Mito is running at him, her hair flying behind her, her headpiece askew. “I got your last letter, but we were travelling, and I couldn’t respond—”

Mito’s hug nearly knocks the wind out of him. “Welcome back,” she whispers, and presses a kiss to his cheek. He hugs her back, hard.

“It’s good to be back,” he says, meaning every word.

Hashirama leans in to kiss Madara’s forehead. “I’ll let you two catch up,” he says, and waves to Mito as he retreats to the next booth. 

“Are you all right?” Mito says once they’re alone, laying one slender hand on Madara’s shoulder. “He seems much more—well—_ handsy _ than usual.”

Madara fails to bite back his smile. “Actually, about that,” he says. “You’ll never guess what happened.” 

Mito glances from Hashirama, cheerfully chatting with the fish-seller next door, to Madara, whose face is turning steadily more red as he stands in the shadow of the nearest awning. Mito’s mouth falls open. “Are you _ serious?” _

Madara nods vigorously.

“You had me _ worried, _ you know!” Mito says, giving Madara a shove. “Both of you did!”

Madara grins, a little sheepish. “Sorry,” he says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Something shimmers. Madara takes hold of Mito’s hand. She flexes her fingers at him, giggling. A thin gold ring twinkles on her finger. 

“Congratulations,” he says, smiling. “Tōka is a lucky woman.”

Mito bites her lip. “You know,” she says, “I was thinking the exact same thing.”

* * *

“How are negotiations with the Hyūga coming along?”

Hashirama takes a long drink of sake. “Better,” he says. “I didn’t give them much leeway, I’ll admit. But there is no place for slavery in this village. Not as long as I am Hokage.”

Madara nods, satisfied. The bathhouse is warm. He pours himself another cup of sake, melting back into the bath with a sigh.

“I’ve been thinking,” Hashirama says, “about everything you told me while you were away—the Sand Daimyō, and Bunpuku, and Shukaku.”

Madara looks at him, very seriously. “And?”

“I will never allow a tailed beast to remain sealed away like that, just to be used and tossed aside by humans,” Hashirama says. “ Not for as long as I live.”

They toast to it.

* * *

It’s well after sunset. Hashirama is fast asleep on Madara’s shoulder. Madara leans back in his chair, very satisfied indeed. Mito is sitting across from him on the sofa, and Machiko is curled up on the floor between them, working very hard on a piece of art.

Tōka brings three cups of green tea over from the kitchen. Mito accepts hers with a quiet “thanks.” 

“Machiko, dear, tea for you?” Tōka says. Machiko looks up from her drawing and nods. “Do you want to come pick out a flavor?”

Machiko leaps up, abandoning her colored pencils on the rug, and follows Tōka into the kitchen. Madara and Mito chuckle, watching her go.

“It’s way past her bedtime,” Mito murmurs. “Not that you would be able to tell, looking at her.”

Madara yawns. “Past mine too,” he says. Hashirama smiles slightly in his sleep, and burrows deeper into the cushions, knocking an armrest off the loveseat. Madara bends to reach it, groaning as his back protests his sudden movement.

“So,” Mito says conspiratorially, leaning in over her cup of tea. “Have you two…you know—?”

Madara almost chokes on his tea. “Have we _ what?” _

“You know,” Mito says, patting him on the shoulder. “Have you gotten married yet? You know, properly? I’d say a ceremony is _ long _ overdue, but that’s just me—”

“Oh!” Madara says with a snort. “Well, we can’t just go back and have a ceremony now, as everyone thinks we’ve been married for months—”

Mito pouts. “That hardly seems fair,” she says. 

“Oh, don’t worry,” Madara says, waving one hand. “We got married the night I got back from Suna. I proposed and everything.”

Mito bursts out laughing. “You—you just did it right then? Can you _ do _ that? I mean—isn’t there all that paperwork, and—” 

“Mito, he’s the most powerful man in the world,” Madara says, gesturing to Hashirama, who is now drooling profusely on Madara’s shoulder. “If he says we’re married, we’re married.”

Mito beams at him. “I don’t know what I expected,” she says. She laughs suddenly, and stoops to pick up Machiko’s drawing. “Look at this,” she says, giggling, and turns the paper around. On it is a drawing, done in colored pencil, of Hashirama, sleeping serenely on Madara’s shoulder. 

* * *

“You told me you wanted to learn more about the Uchiha clan,” Madara says. “This should give you some…firsthand experience.” He makes the hand sign—tiger—to remove the enormous stone in front of the entrance to the tunnel. It shudders into place with a grinding _ boom. _ As the ground settles, Tobirama peers up at the dark ceiling in mild trepidation. Madara claps him on the back. “After you,” he says. 

Tobirama steps inside. “We’re going into the mountain?” he says.

Madara nods, lighting a spark on his fingers. The musty air in the tunnel always catches him off guard. “This is the most direct path to the throne room. It’s not a long walk, just stay beside me.”

Not ten minutes later, Madara doubles back and finds him staring at a large bloodred mural painted onto the cracked stone of the nearest wall. He’s mouthing something to himself, eyes wide. He reaches out to touch the dusty paint with two careful fingers. 

“This way,” Madara says, grabbing Tobirama by the collar. “Don’t look at that painting for too long. Come on, I’ll show you the old clan records.”

* * *

“You know, you were right that night at the hot springs,” Madara says.

Hashirama is winded. “Huh?” he says, after he’s caught his breath.

Madara grins. “When you said you bet we’d have great sex.”

Hashirama laughs. “I did say that, didn’t I?” He bites his lip. “And I _ was _ right.”

Madara very primly tucks a sweaty strand of hair behind his ear.

Hashirama clears his throat. “Now you can say something nice back to me,” he says, “you know, in return.”

Madara smiles, and closes his eyes. “Don’t ruin the moment.”

Hashirama pouts. His lower lip sticks out against Madara’s collarbone. “I think the moment is already ruined,” he says.

“No,” Madara says, and traces circles between Hashirama’s shoulder blades. Hashirama shivers, melts into Madara’s touch. “No, this is perfect.” 

A chorus of late-night frogs are chirping outside. Then an owl calls and the sound of the frogs falls away for a moment, before starting back up again.

“You know,” Madara says again, “it’s about time to start planning for the next Uchiha festival.”

Hashirama perks up a little. “Can we have a Senju festival someday?”

Madara snorts. “Please,” he says. “Every day of my life is a Senju festival.”

Hashirama folds his arm across Madara’s chest. “Indeed,” he murmurs.

Madara grins. “You can have yours in the fall,” he says, “and we’ll do ours ‘round New Years, like we used to do.”

Hashirama perks up a little. “Does that mean—I can make all the pumpkins that I want?”

Madara smiles. “All the pumpkins that you want,” he mumbles into the pillow.

He’s almost asleep when Hashirama pipes up again. “Madara?” he says, in a very small voice.

Madara rolls over. “Hm?”

“You know I’ll still love you long after we’re both gone,” Hashirama murmurs. His breath rumbles against Madara’s back. Outside the window, the treetops sway in a dark line.

Madara feels a pulse of excitement and trepidation go through him. He’s instantly wide awake. “How?” he breathes.

Hashirama is silent for a moment. “The village will know it,” he says slowly. “They’ll see this place that we built together and they’ll know.”

The sensation of Hashirama’s chest rising and falling has sent Madara into some kind of a trance. He matches his breathing to Hashirama’s, feels his heartbeat slow down. For a moment it feels like their hearts are beating at the exact same pace.

“No one else could have done it,” Hashirama says. “Nobody else but us.”

Madara can’t stop himself from laughing. “You’re the God of Shinobi,” he says. “There isn’t much you _ can’t _ do.”

“If I’m the God of Shinobi,” Hashirama murmurs, and a shiver runs down Madara’s back at hearing the words slip from Hashirama’s mouth, “then you gave that to me.”

Madara doesn’t respond. His brain seems to have stopped working.

“You made me want to be better than I was,” Hashirama whispers. “Ever since the beginning, you made me feel like I could do anything.”

His words hang there in the silence like a cluster of stars.

“I—I feel the same,” Madara says at last, his mouth dry. He can feel the start of tears pricking at his eyes. “I always have.”

Hashirama smiles. “You are my constant,” he murmurs, and very gently kisses Madara’s jaw.

Shame claws up Madara’s throat as Hashirama’s words sink in. This shouldn’t be painful, he tells himself. “I never know what to say,” he says, “when you tell me these things. I can’t—say everything I mean. I never have the right words, but I still—” 

He can’t say any more. He just holds Hashirama tight.

* * *

There are ducklings swimming in Hashirama’s pond. Hashirama has decided to plant peppers today, including a packet of fiery-hot seeds that Madara had unearthed in a box in the old Uchiha shrine in the mountains. (“We might be able to recreate Indra’s Brew with these,” Hashirama had said with some curiosity as he inspected a handful of seeds, “although it might take a few millennia to ferment.”)

Madara gropes for the watering can, patting down the soil one-handed. Hashirama, somehow sensing that he’s in need, hands it to him. “Thanks,” he says, tipping the can towards the dirt. It starts to rain, then. Madara looks up, squinting. Somewhere behind him, Hashirama laughs. 

“The ducks should love this,” Hashirama says, watching the skies. Madara blinks raindrops from his eyelashes, grinning. He can feel Hashirama’s chakra spreading through the earth, sending seeds sprouting like mad all over the garden. It’s almost a shock, at first, but he’s acclimating quickly. It’s as if his chest is bursting from the feeling, as if the air itself is full of pure love. He can’t stop himself from laughing. 

A gaggle of Academy students run by Hashirama’s courtyard with their bookbags held over their heads, laughing and splashing through puddles. Kagami is in the lead, Madara notices with some wry satisfaction, and Torifu is carrying Machiko on his back. She grins at him as they pass. Madara waves back. She’s lost a tooth, he realizes, and beams. 

Hashirama sets down his trowel in the dirt, wiping his forehead. He leaves behind a long smear of earth on his skin. Madara laughs, and goes to wipe it for him, but Hashirama is ready for him, and he pulls Madara into his lap and traps him there.

“Gross,” Madara chuckles. “You’re all dirty.”

“You love it,” Hashirama murmurs in his ear, and runs his fingers down Madara’s side. Madara can’t stop the giggle—the actual giggle—that bursts from his throat. 

“Maybe so,” he tries to say, but he’s too ticklish to respond. 

* * *

“Did you _ hear _ that?”

“Yeah,” Hashirama says, panting. 

“That was my hip,” Madara says through gritted teeth, gingerly stretching his leg out until his toes reach the cool spot at the bottom of the sheets. 

“Ha, ha,” Hashirama says. “Old man.”

Madara scoffs. “If I’m an old man, what does that make you?”

Hashirama wraps his arms around him, buries his face in the crook of Madara’s neck. “This old man’s impossibly handsome husband,” he says.

Madara turns to him. “You know what?” he says.

“What?”

Madara grins. “You’re lucky you’re so impossibly handsome, Hashirama, or I wouldn’t know how to tolerate you otherwise.”

“You flatter me,” Hashirama says.

“I know.”

Crickets and cicadas are chirping outside. 

“Madara?”

“Hm,” Madara says.

“You smell nice,” says Hashirama.

Madara scoffs. “Like sex and dirt, you mean?”

“No, it’s nice,” Hashirama insists, and buries his face deeper in Madara’s hair. “Smells like…”

Madara spits out a stray hair. He knows the word Hashirama wants is _ home. _ He doesn’t have to say it. He smiles.

“I’m glad we made it here,” Hashirama says softly.

“Me too,” Madara says.

Outside the window, the moon is a golden-peach sliver. The stars are out, and a quiet wind stirs the treetops. Madara reaches for Hashirama’s hand, and receives a firm squeeze in return. For now, in this quiet moment, the world is theirs.

Konoha is thriving. Peace is on the horizon. The years ahead are bright with hope. In any other story, this would be the end. But in the case of this one, the story is still only beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you from the bottom of my heart for all of the support this fic has gotten. it has truly blown me away. i hope you enjoyed reading it as much as i enjoyed writing it!! i had more to say, but totally i feel like madara right now...no words will ever be enough to express my gratitude...
> 
> i hope your spring months are splendid
> 
> https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/peace-wild-things-0/


End file.
